If you hire a guide who only knows one route, they'll take you along that route. Regardless of the season, the weather or your rope team's experience (the group that climbs tied to the same rope). The same happens with business technology, and it's one of the most expensive mistakes: if your advisor only knows one solution, they'll recommend that solution, whether you need it or not. But there's a second mistake, just as common, that happens even with the right advisor: designing the system as if it were a letter to Santa Claus.
The letter-to-Santa problem
Many implementations start with the same question: “What do you want the system to do?”. The client makes their list — this, that and the other — and the vendor builds it point by point.
It sounds reasonable, but there's a trap. You know your critical processes and where you want to go, but you don't necessarily know your industry's best practices. And your list includes, without you noticing, the bad habits accumulated over years: controls that no longer serve, steps that exist because “it's always been done this way”. The result can be a nice system… or a Frankenstein.
A good implementation doesn't copy your current operation: it improves it.
Best practices first
The formula works better the other way around. The guide arrives with experience in your industry: how the companies that do it well operate, which processes are worth standardizing and which ones set you apart. From there, the right question is asked: what are you missing that's truly critical to your business?
That way, the conversation stops being “let's build what you asked for” and becomes “this is the best that exists for your type of company; now let's identify what makes you unique”. Often the client receives value they hadn't even asked for, because they didn't know it existed.
This approach has another benefit: it uses the system change to remove bad habits, both in the operation and in leadership itself. That's why we always start with awareness.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution
Imagine two pharmaceutical distributors handling similar medicines. But one grows by selling to hospitals and the public health sector: it needs to track every lot, control the cold chain, comply with health regulations and follow up on contracts and tenders. The other grows with its own pharmacy chain: it needs a fast point of sale, control of inventory and expiration dates at every branch, and to know what sells, where and at what time.
Same industry, different strategies and, therefore, different solutions. All the leading platforms on the market do some things very well and others not so well. The question isn't which is “the best”, but which will give you the least friction for what makes you competitive. Sometimes the deciding criterion is something as valid as the ecosystem your team already masters.
It's the same on the mountain: there's no single route to the summit. Each face has its own, and the right one depends on the team, the season and the climber's experience. Exactly the same happens with companies.
The tool is the foundation; whoever implements it makes the difference
On a vertical wall, what matters more: the brand of the rope or who sets the anchor, the fixed point in the rock that holds the rope and the climber? Software is the infrastructure, the raw material. What turns that raw material into a competitive advantage is business knowledge, proven practices and the way they're adapted to your market.
The conflict of interest of the advisor married to one brand
A guide who gets paid to always take people along the same trail is unlikely to suggest another. The same happens with an advisor who only sells one platform: even if they know another suits you better, their incentive is to defend their own. The honesty of a diagnosis depends on the person doing it having nothing to lose if the answer is different.
Six questions to evaluate your advisor
- Did they start by understanding your business or by showing you a demo?
- How many platforms do they know in depth, and how do they make money from their recommendation?
- Did they tell you what the solution they recommend does badly?
- Did they propose best practices or just take notes on your list?
- Did they explain what you don't need to buy?
- Have they ever told you “not yet”?
The KLIMMER view
Our ERP Advisory service was born from this conviction: first the diagnosis, then the tool. We evaluate options with judgment, tell you the good and the bad of each, and recommend the one that best serves your strategy, not ours. And when a company isn't ready for a step like that yet, we tell them. Doing a client more harm than good is never good business.
