ERP Software Upgrade
Over the past several months, our organization successfully completed one of its more ambitious technology initiatives to date: a full enterprise resource planning (ERP) software upgrade. This upgrade was needed to strengthen our operational foundation and position us for future growth. The goal was to create a more reliable and scalable system. To achieve this, it required a dedicated team who was aligned and understood this upgrade would enable for our teams and our customers.
Behind the scenes, this ERP system upgrade brought together an extraordinary mix of hardware refreshes, software modernization, and countless hours from our team to train and test. Both the full upgrade and required post-upgrade testing were projected to take more than 60 hours. This left our available maintenance windows to be extremely limited, only the long Thanksgiving weekend, with a backup option during the year-end holiday break. Missing those opportunities would have pushed the entire project out an entire year, which made our cutover windows one that required near-perfect execution. Thanks to the determination of everyone involved, we delivered exactly that. What could have been a disruptive challenge instead became a demonstration of our collective strength and adaptability.
Today, we continue to operate as One Company, Multiple Locations – all on a system that is more stable, more responsive, and better aligned with where we’re headed as a company. This upgrade is more than a technical milestone, rather a testament to what we can accomplish when we work together with purpose and diligence. To everyone who contributed time and expertise: thank you. The commitment from our team has laid a foundation that will support the excellence and scale for years to come.
My suggestions for any organization that is preparing for a similar journey are:
- Build a clear business case from the start to align stakeholders and reinforce the purpose of the upgrade.
- Assess hardware and infrastructure early to uncover dependencies that may affect the scope or timeline.
- Plan for realistic time windows to include post-upgrade testing and ancillary software updates.
- Conduct thorough cross-departmental testing that includes signals and handoffs to ensure real-world processes are tested.
- Document risks and mitigation plans to anticipate challenges.
- Develop a simple and clear communication plan to ensure alignment across the entire organization.
