Continuing my series on ERP evaluation, today I am discussing some of the maintainence and modification issues involved in evaluating an ERP. Remember these issues listed below are part of an overall evaluation strategy. A company cannot just take a decision to buy an ERP just on the basis of the points mentoined below. Some of the core issues to be considered while evaluating an ERP modification issues are -

1. Will the ERP under consideration required to be modified before implementation or can it function on an as is basis?

2. How are system requirements defined for the ERP? How easy or difficult is it to make changes to the ERP?

3. Can the administrative processes be tailored to users requirements.

4. How rapidly can changes be done to the existing ERP. Are there any outstanding problems with the ERP which need to be sorted out.

5. One of the key things to consider is does the vendor provide onsite support and maintainence Are customers advised of outstanding problems that other users have discovered?

6. How are new releases or newer versions of the ERP rolled out? Are these available to the purchasers automatically or these have to be bought seperately?

7. Is it possible to send a system dump to the vendor? This is important since system dump might be required to be sent to the vendor for review?

8. What kind of support is available from the vondor for the ERP? In case the software is modified by the customer, will the vendor support it?