The headline may be a tad harsh – obviously the hope is you will succeed – but failed implementations of Microsoft Dynamics GP can be headed off early if you avoid these mistakes:
You want a fixed fee implementation. It's simple, if you put a fixed price on the costs of implementation, then you are placing a fixed scope of the work performed. No partner can agree to do an unlimited amount of work for a fixed price. With consultants under pressure to get work done in a fixed timeline, and your internal resources under instructions from above to stay within the monetary scope of the project, important functionality may not be installed. If you are working with the right partner, you can get a degree of cost certainty around your implementation of Dynamics GP that should satisfy your budgeting needs.
You went with the lowest price, despite concerns you had. Certainly there are instances in which the lowest cost implementation partner can do an excellent job. They may have their processes down better than others, or perhaps they can easily replicate work they did elsewhere. But if you have concerns about a partner and go with them simply based on price, then you are headed for trouble.
You started in October – and want to be live January 1. With very few exceptions, it is not possible to install Dynamics GP unless you allow at least 3 months – and ideally more than that. Similar to the point about fixed fee – if everyone is under pressure to get things down quickly, important functionality will be missed
You did not consider what needs to integrate with Dynamics GP. Yes – you can go back in Phase II and integrate things like Microsoft CRM or other critical business management software. But you need to take all of that into account ahead of time – before your ERP is configured. It can make the difference between an easy integration, or one that will be impossible to accomplish. You don’t need a full project plan for integration, but you should at least have a general idea of what you may want to do.
By Intellitec Solutions, a Dynamics GP partner serving clients in Delaware and Pennsylvania