After 25 years working in ERP, you might expect that not much would surprise me anymore. Over that time, I have seen many systems, many projects, and many well-intentioned teams trying to do the right thing.
Even so, a few things still catch my attention. Not because they are unusual, but because they show up so consistently, regardless of industry, system, or organization size.
The biggest one is this.
Technology is rarely the hardest part.
Most ERP Challenges Start Before Anyone Calls It a Project
By the time an ERP project gets a name and a timeline, teams have already made many of the most important decisions.
Those decisions include assumptions about how the business works, expectations around growth, and beliefs about how much change people can realistically handle. Together, they shape everything that follows.
What continues to stand out to me is how little time teams spend testing those assumptions. As a result, ERP can start to feel like something they need to do rather than something they step into deliberately. When that happens, the system begins its life carrying expectations it was never designed to meet.
ERP Reflects How You Work, Not How You Wish You Worked
ERP systems have a way of holding up a mirror.
Unclear decision-making shows up quickly. When departments do not work well together, the system does not fix that. If accountability is fuzzy, approvals slow down and workarounds appear.
Even now, I still see teams hoping the system will bring order on its own. In practice, ERP amplifies what is already there. That is not a failure of the software. It is simply how integrated systems behave.
What often catches people off guard is not that issues surface, but how unprepared they feel when the system reveals them.
Bigger Systems Do Not Automatically Mean Better Outcomes
Over the years, I have worked with many organizations that believed growth meant moving to something bigger and more complex.
They add more modules. They buy more features. Customization increases.
In practice, I often see the opposite effect. Teams pay for functionality they rarely use. Administration becomes heavier. Renewal costs stop making sense for where the organization actually is.
What continues to surprise me is how difficult it can be to step back and ask whether the system still fits. Right-sizing an ERP is not a step backward. In many cases, it is a practical decision that reduces friction and cost.
Governance Feels Optional Until It Is Not
Governance is not an exciting topic. It rarely feels urgent. Because of that, teams often push it aside when things get busy.
Yet almost every ERP rescue I have been part of traces back to the same gap. Ownership is unclear. Decision-making structures are inconsistent. No regular forum exists to step back and look at the bigger picture.
What stands out is not that projects struggle. It is how many of those struggles could have been avoided with a small amount of ongoing structure and oversight.
The Most Valuable ERP Work Often Happens After Go Live
Many teams believe that once a system goes live, the hardest part is over. In reality, organizations start learning how the system works in practice at that point.
This is when reporting matures, processes settle, and connections between finance, operations, and leadership decisions become clearer. It is also when many teams feel on their own, because the project phase has technically ended.
What continues to stand out to me is how much value gets left on the table when no one helps guide the system through that next stage.
So…
After almost 25 years in ERP, I have learned that success rarely comes from finding the perfect system.
Instead, it comes from making thoughtful choices, revisiting them as the organization evolves, and involving experienced people when things feel uncertain.
If anything still stands out to me, it is how much difference those conversations make when they happen early and with the right perspective.
At BHC Group, we are experienced ERP consultants who focus on filling the gaps that often get overlooked. That includes early planning, readiness, governance, data quality, and the practical realities of change.
If an ERP initiative is on your roadmap, or if your current system is not delivering the value you expected, it is worth having the conversation early.
