The ERP selection checklist: twelve questions for every vendor
By Dennis Jacobs — twelve years of ERP experience in manufacturing
An ERP demo is a play directed by the vendor. That's not an accusation — it's their job. But you decide the script. These twelve questions take the demo out of sales mode and give you answers you can lay side by side.
About the demo itself
1. Can you show this with our case — our BoM, our costing, our rush order — instead of the demo data? A vendor who refuses or postpones shows you how the project will go later.
2. Which of the screens we just saw are standard, and which are configured or custom? The prettiest screen in the demo regularly turns out to be weeks of configuration.
3. Who is giving this demo — and who will do the implementation? The vendor's best consultant often lives in the sales phase and never sits at your table again.
About migration and integrations
4. What is your approach to our data migration, and what do you expect from us in it? Vague answers here become change orders there.
5. Which of our integrations (webshop, PDM/PLM, planning, whatever applies) are available as standard, which are custom, and what does that custom work cost?
6. Have you done this at a company that resembles us — same kind of production, same size — and may we call them? References the vendor supplies are by definition their best three; ask for one you pick yourself from their client list.
About money and change orders
7. What does a change after go-live cost — an extra field, an adjusted report, a new workflow? This everyday work determines your costs in years two through ten.
8. What happens to the price if the project overruns because of something on your side? A vendor who only wants time-and-materials places the overrun risk entirely with you.
9. Which licence tier do our shop-floor employees fall into, and what does it cost if there turn out to be more of them after go-live?
About the long term
10. How do we get our data out if we ever want to leave — in what format, at what cost? You ask the exit question at your strongest moment: before the signature.
11. What is the release calendar, and what does a major release mean for our configuration and customisations? “Automatic” is rarely the whole answer.
12. What role do you expect from our own team, in days per week? The answer says more about the real project duration than the plan in the quote.
How to use the answers
Ask all twelve questions of every candidate, in writing or with someone taking minutes, and lay the answers side by side. Not to crown a winner on points, but because the differences show exactly where each package and each partner really stands. The demo convinces; the answers substantiate.
