How to recover an ERP go-live that's falling apart

When I take over an ERP go-live and the world is falling apart, I write down what's going wrong, establish the facts, and fix what's breaking the business.

The pattern is familiar. A system goes live with integrations unfinished and data half moved, against the advice of the people who use it. Customer orders go unfulfilled. Stock isn't reordered. Thousands of support tickets flood in.

The teams that recover stop working tickets. They find where the business is broken and fix that. Done this way, orders, stock and the business start moving again within weeks, not months.

1. Measure each process

Split the business into its main processes: selling, buying, manufacturing, stock, finance and payroll. Set KPIs for each, checked every morning: orders shipped on time, suppliers paid, days to close the month.

Mark each process red, amber or green based on the KPIs. Within a few days, you know where the business is broken.

2. Fix cash, customers and compliance first

Start where red touches money, customers or the law. Everything else waits.

For each problem, ask: is it the system, the data or the training? Usually it's data or training, not the software.

3. Stop workarounds becoming the system

Log every workaround and give each an owner and an end date. When the fix lands, the workaround goes, and so does its cost.

Leave them unmanaged and the bill grows. Birmingham City Council budgeted £5.3m in one year to staff its workarounds.

4. Get the people and money to fix it

Make sure you have the people, expertise and capacity to fix the system. If that means bringing the systems integrator back, fine. If it means more money, fine.

Either costs less than a failed payroll, broken financial reporting and dropped orders.