ERP Modernization
When ERP becomes a board-level issue, the problem is rarely the software
Modernization and recovery engagements begin with an independent assessment and end with a plan leadership can approve, resource and hold people to.
Scope
What modernization work covers
Business transformation
The programme is defined by what changes in the business — decision speed, cost visibility, control environment — and the system scope follows from that definition.
ERP recovery
Independent assessment of a programme that has lost schedule, budget or confidence, followed by a remediation plan with a defensible cost position.
Executive alignment
Finance, operations and IT frequently hold three different definitions of success. Reconciling them is a prerequisite, not a workshop deliverable.
Change management
Adoption planning built into delivery: role-based readiness, process ownership, and a first close where the business operates the system itself.
Finance transformation
Close acceleration, dimensional reporting, control redesign and the elimination of the spreadsheet layer that has grown around the ERP.
Governance and controls
Segregation of duties, approval authority, audit trail and the documentation an external auditor will actually accept.
Recovery
The first six weeks of an ERP recovery
Recovery engagements follow a fixed shape. The value is in the sequence and in the willingness to state an uncomfortable position early.
- 01
Weeks 1–2 — Independent assessment
Interviews with sponsors, finance leads and the delivery team; review of scope, design decisions, data position and test evidence. No remediation work begins during this period.
- 02
Weeks 2–3 — Name what will not be delivered
A written statement of what the current plan cannot achieve, with the reasons. This is the moment most recoveries succeed or fail, and it requires the sponsor to hear it plainly.
- 03
Weeks 3–5 — Rebuild the plan
A revised scope, sequence, resource model and cost position, structured so leadership can approve it without a further study.
- 04
Weeks 5–6 — Re-establish governance
Decision rights, escalation paths and a reporting cadence that surfaces slippage in days rather than quarters. Delivery resumes against the revised plan.
Diagnostic
Signals that a programme needs an independent view
None of these alone is conclusive. Three or more together generally are.
- The close takes longer after go-live than it did before.
- Design decisions are being reopened in user acceptance testing.
- Finance is maintaining a parallel spreadsheet model to trust the numbers.
- The change log is growing faster than the test evidence.
- Nobody in the room can state the programme's completion criteria.
- The steering committee receives status by percentage complete rather than by working process.
Request an independent assessment
A fixed-scope assessment runs four to six weeks and produces a written position on scope, cost, risk and the path forward.