| The vast majority of ERP projects involve | | | | with business analysts and business stakeholders |
| migrating from one or more legacy systems to a | | | | should encourage clear understanding of the role |
| new ERP system. A key part of this is the | | | | of data in business processes and business |
| migration of data from the old system(s) to the | | | | ownership of that data. |
| new. The complexity of this task depends on the | | | | Tasks that can be carried out pre-completion of |
| implementation. At the most basic level it will | | | | design include: |
| involve migrating the customers you need to sell | | | | - Data preparation - manual and time consuming |
| to, the suppliers you need to buy from and the | | | | activities like data cleansing in the legacy |
| products or services you need to transact. As | | | | system(s). |
| well as this, depending on the scale of the | | | | - Tasks like product code harmonisation can be |
| business, open transactions and account balances | | | | planned and agreed in advance of detailed design |
| are likely to be included. Depending on scope, data | | | | and before business stakeholders become more |
| from quality, fixed assets, manufacturing or other | | | | heavily involved in training, testing and have other |
| areas of the organisation might also need to be | | | | demands on their time. |
| considered. | | | | - Technical resources can be assembled and |
| All of these data may exist as islands, or partially | | | | prepared. This includes a data migration team and |
| integrated chunks, in the legacy environment. At | | | | ETL (Extract Transform and Load) infrastructure. |
| the heart of ERP is integration between different | | | | - A strategy can be formulated and agreed |
| modules and processes. This is what drives the | | | | concerning general approach, testing, retention of |
| efficiencies to be found in ERP. Supporting these | | | | non-active transactional data (for reporting or |
| integrated processes is integrated data. To | | | | regulatory compliance), etc. |
| extract value from this data it must be migrated | | | | Upon completion of design, tasks such as detailed |
| in a well planned manner by a team that | | | | data mapping, ETL development and conversion |
| understand the ERP solution design and the role | | | | testing can be carried out. |
| the data plays. | | | | Addressing pre-design tasks early in the project |
| Frequently data migration is addressed in the later | | | | improves the potential to populate the new |
| stages of the project. To some extent this is | | | | system with clean, well integrated data to support |
| because certain details are dependant on the | | | | the integrated ERP processes and hence to derive |
| completion of the design phase of the project. | | | | value from the ERP system. In addition it |
| Identifying and commencing those tasks that can | | | | improves the likelihood that data migration test |
| be started early can contribute tangibly to the | | | | cycles can be carried out early and frequently. |
| overall success of the project by allowing time | | | | The earlier and more frequently that test cycles |
| post-design to develop data extraction and load | | | | can be carried out the more likely it is that data |
| routines quickly and to run through as many test | | | | (and system) cutover will run smoothly. |
| cycles as required. In addition, early engagement | | | | |