A practical guide to ERP selection.
Choose an ERP by the decisions it must support, the scenarios it must run, and the partner who will still answer after go-live.
Choosing an ERP starts long before the first demo. If you begin with vendors, you will end with their process, not yours.
Name the problem in decisions
Write down the ten decisions the business struggles to make: what can we promise a customer, what did this order actually cost, which supplier is late again. If a system does not change those decisions, it does not matter how complete its brochure is.
Also write the constraints you will not change this year: a legal entity structure, a warehouse that cannot be rebuilt, a team of four in finance. Honest constraints shorten the shortlist faster than any scoring matrix.
Make them run your scenario
A generic demo proves the software can sell. Ask for your scenario, with your items, your approval rule, and your exception. Watch what the presenter has to leave the script to do. That gap is your future change request.
Score fit, not features. A feature you will not use in the next eighteen months is not a benefit. It is a screen someone has to be trained not to touch.
Buy the partner as carefully as the product
After go-live, you will not call the logo. You will call the people who configured it. Ask who will be on the project, how many similar companies they have taken live, and what happens when the consultant rotates. Read a contract for response time, not for adjectives.
Then price the years after the project: licences, support, the internal owner, and the integrations you already know you need. The cheapest licence with the most expensive operating model is not a saving.