ERP projects fail at a rate that would be unacceptable in any other kind of purchase. The reasons repeat, and the expensive ones happen before a single line is configured.
1. Buying before understanding the process
Software is chosen from a feature list, then the business is bent to fit it. The result is a system that technically does everything and that nobody uses, because it does not match how the work happens.
Map the process you have first — genuinely, by watching it, not by asking a manager to describe it. That map is what tells you which features matter and which demos are theatre.
2. Rolling everything out at once
The big-bang launch is attractive because it feels decisive. It fails because there is no way to learn between steps: every problem arrives simultaneously, in every department, in the same week.
Sequence it. Put the process that hurts most into production, prove it, then extend. You will design the second module better for having run the first.
3. Migrating dirty data
Whatever is wrong with your current data will be wrong in the new system, with a new interface making it more visible. Duplicate customers, inconsistent product codes, half-finished records.
Cleaning is unglamorous and always underestimated. Budget real time for it and decide explicitly what will not be migrated.
4. Nobody owns it
If the project belongs to "IT" while the process belongs to operations, decisions stall in the gap. There has to be one person with authority over both the software and the process it encodes.
5. Training treated as the last line item
A two-hour session the week before go-live is not training. People need to practise on their own data, make mistakes safely, and have somewhere to ask questions in the first weeks. The cost of skipping this is a permanent tax on adoption.
The uncomfortable one
Sometimes the honest answer is that you do not need ERP yet — that a well-designed system for the one process that hurts will deliver most of the value for a fraction of the cost and disruption.
How we approach it
We start with the bottleneck, not the suite. More on that in ERP for construction companies in Saudi Arabia, and what BK IT builds.