Selecting software should be the last decision in an ERP project, not the first. That runs contrary to how most manufacturers approach it, and it disappoints people who ask me which system I recommend, because my honest answer is usually “I don’t know yet.” I learned why that answer matters more than ten years ago, on a project I nearly walked away from.

A Company That Outgrew Its Tools

The manufacturer had grown from roughly $5 million to $50 million in annual sales in eighteen months. The company operated since 1986 on spreadsheets and a single licensed copy of Peachtree Accounting, and for years that was enough. Until it wasn’t.

Every department was feeling the strain. Accounting wanted better financial controls. Sales wanted visibility into orders. Engineering wanted product control. Customer service wanted accurate order status. Production wanted better scheduling and inventory. Every manager was telling the owner the same thing: we need a system.

The owner agreed. But in one of our early meetings, he made a statement that stopped me in my tracks.

“I’ll pay for three licenses. Everyone else can share them.”

I’ll be honest. For a moment, I considered walking away. Not because the owner was being unreasonable, but because that one sentence revealed he didn’t yet understand what an ERP was supposed to accomplish.

A Reasonable Assumption That Would Have Failed

His perspective was completely rational. He had built a successful company on spreadsheets and one accounting package. Software had always been an expense to minimize, and from where he sat, buying three ERP licenses instead of one already felt like a major investment.

But I knew what would happen if we built the project around that assumption. The implementation would fail before it ever went live.

Production operators wouldn’t enter transactions. Warehouse personnel wouldn’t update inventory. Forklift drivers wouldn’t have access. Customer service would keep handwritten notes until someone with an ERP login became available. People would keep doing what they had always done, and the ERP would become little more than an expensive accounting system. The knowledge of how the business actually ran would stay where it had always lived: in spreadsheets, notepads, and the heads of a few key people.

The Decision That Changed the Project

Fortunately, the market gave us an option. At the time, only a handful of truly cloud-native manufacturing ERP systems existed. Most products marketed as “cloud” were traditional software hosted on someone else’s servers. But one platform priced by company revenue instead of by user count.

That single difference changed everything. Instead of debating who deserved a license, everyone got one.

Production operators entered transactions where the work happened. Forklift operators accessed inventory from their vehicles. Handheld barcode scanners replaced manual inventory updates. iPads went out across the production floor. Customer service entered orders the moment they arrived instead of batching them at the end of the day. Information was captured at its source instead of flowing through a handful of gatekeepers.

From that foundation, we implemented serialized product traceability for the automotive industry, electronic data interchange with major vehicle manufacturers, dealer self-service ordering, supplier portals, inventory control, financial structures, and the operational processes that allowed the company to keep growing.

Recently, I learned the company is still running that ERP more than ten years later. That was incredibly rewarding. Not because I chose the “right” software, but because the implementation was never really about software. It was about understanding how the business needed to operate, and then finding the system that supported that vision.

Ask the Better Question First

Today, I still see manufacturers begin ERP projects by asking the wrong question: “Which ERP should we buy?”

The better question is: “How should our business operate, and which ERP best supports that vision?”

When you answer that question first, licensing gets evaluated against how many people actually touch the work, not how many people sit in the office. Deployment decisions follow where information originates, whether that is the production floor, the warehouse, or the loading dock. Software selection becomes a conclusion you arrive at rather than a bet you place at the start.

ERP didn’t transform that company. The people did. The system simply gave them a better way to work. In my experience, that’s the difference between an ERP implementation that merely goes live and one that’s still creating value a decade later.

Lee Stout is the founder of Staudt Advisory, where he helps mid-market manufacturers navigate ERP selection and operational strategy. He brings 25 years of hands-on manufacturing experience across supply chain, engineering configuration management, and manufacturing operations, plus 11 years of ERP implementation and architecture. Learn more at staudtadvisory.com.