Your company has grown considerably. And without a doubt, you’ve outgrown your current ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software, too. Or, you’ve stumbled along, trying to make Excel spreadsheets, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, and bits of third-party software do the job of running your core business processes, and you can’t keep up with demand.
Is a new ERP the “magic wand” you need? Perhaps. “People think, ‘If I buy it, it’s just going to magically do what I want it to do,’” says Ryan Steinert, a business growth consultant with Enterprise Minnesota.
A well-matched ERP can be a game changer, but making the wrong choice can be a nightmare. “Everybody has a little sour taste in their mouth of ERPs in the past — either the ones they’ve implemented or horror stories they’ve heard where a company puts a big investment into a new one that they’re hoping will do a lot and it just doesn’t meet their expectations up front,” Steinert says.
Ready for change
Pequot Manufacturing in Pequot Lakes is currently working with its second ERP system and is searching for another. The 44-year-old company “pretty much manufactures whatever comes in the door,” says Support Operations Director Glen Young. With 95,000 square feet of space and 225 employees, Pequot Manufacturing serves more than 30 industries in the U.S. — including sheet metal fabrication, job shop precision machining, and contract manufacturing.
Young says they’ve been forced to use a “Swiss Army Knife approach” to their ERP by constantly customizing it. He says they painted themselves into a corner whenever they wanted to make changes. “Whether it be accounting or HR or quality — you wind up having not the best of breed, but with solutions that are just ‘okay,’” he says.
In August 2024, Steinert arrived on Pequot Manufacturing’s doorstep to help them find the right ERP. “There are hundreds of ERPs out there,” he says. “As this company continues to pursue growth with different markets and manufacturing processes, they need a system that is flexible and works for them and not against them.”
How to choose?
Before company leaders consider their options, Steinert meets multiple times with them, learning as much as he can about their business and how they want to operate. “We’ll look at their core value streams of what they’re trying to produce and all the processes that go into that,” he says.
Young says a cross-section of employees from just about every department participated in their meetings. “We let everybody speak their piece about what they wanted in an ERP system.”
Steinert’s presence forced them to slow down to determine what might benefit the company the most. “Ryan was a very neutral party,” Young says. “He was able to understand what we were looking for and guide us.”
Once the company put together a wish list of requirements, the group ranked them in importance. “The level of detail that Ryan went through and the questions he asked were really good,” Young says. “I don’t think there was anything that we missed.”
Five questions companies should ask
Steinert suggests that companies ask good questions to guide the acquisition and implementation of an ERP.
1) What processes do we need to simplify and standardize?
Steinert recommends getting rid of wasteful processes. “You need to understand what your process is and how to standardize it the best way possible.”
2) What can and should we automate?
By automating tasks, your employees can work on things that would have more value to your customers than inputting data into a spreadsheet, for example.
3) What goals are the most important?
“Once you get into an ERP implementation, the water can get muddy pretty quick, and you want to hold on to what’s important to you,” Steinert says. “You don’t want to get to the end of this thing and think, ‘Wow, that didn’t really give us what we wanted.’”
4) What’s under the hood?
Don’t take what the ERP company says at face value. Ask how it works and have them prove it. Young says his company wants to know how close the system is to what they need, and what it will take to make it work for them.
5) How does this help us improve?
Companies often want specialized reports of key process indicators or metrics — data that can tell them how to improve. One of the most critical functions of an ERP is to allow data to cross each of a company’s core business entities. “I like the quote that one of the businesses we work with uses,” Steinert explains. “‘It’s my system of truth or my core truth,’ where you can always come back to it and know what’s going on.”
Ready to act
Steinert delivered a “Top 10” list of ERPs, along with details on how well each one matched Pequot Manufacturing’s ranked list of goals. “We’re not necessarily there to pick the ERP for them,” Steinert says. “From that list, they can really narrow down their choice of what would be the best system for them.”
Young says it was a great experience. “We went from a lot of people who were afraid of change — and afraid to leave a system that we put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into — to picking a system that will fill our needs much better from right out of the box.”
Return to the Fall 2025 issue of Enterprise Minnesota® magazine.
