The Most Overlooked Cost Item In ERP/CRM System Selection

During ERP and CRM system selection, the various costs and possible benefits are analyzed in considerable detail and then assessed for each vendor. Oddly enough, one important factor is often completely missed during this process. Which one? The cost of the next ERP/CRM system!

The selection of a new ERP or CRM application is never done as a back-of-an-envelope exercise. After all, most organisations want to profit from the new tool for many years. Many prospective buyers tell us something like the following:

"From a bookkeeping standpoint, the investment's term of depreciation is 5 years. But ideally we want to work with the new solution for 10 years or more".

Anyone who wants to work with a system for that long must have a really good crystal ball. Because in 10 years' time, a lot can change! What will the world look like in the year 2026? Which devices will we be working with then? How far will the technology be developed? And which parts of our future have yet even to be invented, developed and marketed? So there are plenty of questions, and from today’s vantage point we can only guess at the answers.

To get a handle on this challenge, it can be instructive to turn the clock back some 10 years. Can you remember the exact state of technology in 2006? No one had ever heard of tablets back then. Let alone the verb 'swiping'! WhatsApp didn't even exist at that point. Google was a relatively unknown company. And cloud technology was in its infancy. Perhaps this comparison provides you a bit of perspective into what we can expect in terms of new developments in the coming 10 years. But far more importantly - can you comprehend what all this means ...