Companies expanding internationally and opening subsidiaries in South America, China, Europe or Russian regions need to form the strategy in international ERP. There are common mistakes that are probably not show stoppers but they might cause unnecessary overhead and gaps in control.
We would like to share our experience selling and implementing this mid-market accounting package in Brazil and Russian Federation. In the past we had consulting practice in Moscow, Sao Paulo and Prague and we were marketing Great Plains Dynamics, Peach Tree and later on SAP B1 as it became available and localized for these countries and regions:
1. ERP Hosting Question. In the past the issue was poor and unreliable internet connection and bandwidth. This issue required work around where you have to host the server directly in foreign office and potentially deploy local consulting team to do chart of accounts design, data migration, user training and other implementation aspects. In this case the problems are seen down the road where you are trying to formalize consolidated financial reporting or GL data import to the company database in the headquarters. Modern situation with internet reliability and bandwidth in most cases allow you to find good provider. We strongly recommend you to consider centralized hosting and opening user interface via Citrix or similar technologies. If all the accounting databases are hosted on central Microsoft SQL Server you have complete control over IT support, consolidated reports design, internal audit and data queries
2. Licenses Acquisition and Sales Cycle. If you delegate these functions to controller in the overseas office it is natural for him to locate local firm and engage them into the sales cycle. The advantages for your let’s say Brazilian controller are apparent but they might mean disadvantages for the headquarters here in the United States. Usually we see strong arguments that Brazilian legislation is completely different from what you have in the USA and we need local consulting firm to do the job. Try to think about such factors as standardization in GL Chart of Accounts, Consolidated Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet, Federal and State reporting here in Illinois or California or where the headquarters is located. Also there might be the conflict of interests as Brazilian or Russian consulting team might be not authorized to sell you licenses in the States and you would have to do purchase twice or even multiple times
3. Strategic International Consulting. It is better idea to pick reseller here in the States with good records in international projects. ERP implementation is surgery which requires medical team to be in tight coordination and on the ‘same page’
4. Who will go onsite to Siberia or Amazon area or say Chinese manufacturing region? The question might be overemphasized as there is no need to be physically all the time onsite to do implementation job and following technical support. It is OK to fly out only once for project manager to shake hands and establish personal relations with key manager and users. Following support could be done remotely via web session and phone or Skype conferences. Good idea to locate consulting organization where consultants speak the language of the country where your remote facility is located
5. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904, help@efaru.com. We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA and Canada nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed)
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