The 10 questions to ask yourself to choose an ERP that fits your project

When you attend an EPR provider's demonstration, the provider will first ask you a number of questions. The objective is to size your project and propose an architecture that is adapted to your business data and your need. He will then present you his solutions and functionalities in a personalized way.

At Adoria, management solution for multi-site catering, here are the questions we raise with you, in order to best size and parameterize your ERP software according to your activity.

1 - What is the current and future number of sites?

Depending on the number of restaurants you have, your needs and resources differ. Here are the different thresholds observed in practice:

• Over five sites, a manager can no longer be in contact with his teams on a daily basis, so it is necessary to get organized for operational tasks;
• Over ten sites, management via a spreadsheet becomes too time-consuming, it is from this threshold that the ERP becomes really interesting;
• Over twenty sites, an organization has the means to structure its headquarters to bring customized tools to all sites. The size of the group allows the investments to be amortized over the entire network.

The number of restaurants is a first indicator in the use of an ERP. The more sites you have, the more relevant the implementation of an ERP is.

2 - The number of references purchase items

This data can indicate two things to the ERP provider:

• The width of the offer for sale, whether it is the menu (in commercial catering) or the menu cycle (in collective catering);
• The structuring of purchases: do you work with a single supplier or with several?

This data will have a significant impact on the way you work since you don't order 200 references every week in the same way or 200 references that rotate among a catalog of over 10,000 items. The ERP adapts to your rhythm and to the structuring of your purchases.

3 - The number of processed recipes and items on sale

• The width of the offer on sale, mentioned in the previous question, also gives an indication of the work to be done to parameterize the recipe cards
• The degree of centralization/decentralization of the food offer is also an element to be taken into consideration.

4 - The number of suppliers

On this point, it is necessary to consider:

• The structuring of purchases (single or multi-suppliers), but also the size of the repository to be parameterized;
• the level of centralization of suppliers (national or local), knowing that national suppliers are more likely to set up EDI flows.

The centralization of purchases allows more control of supplies because there is a common repository in the group.

5 - Management of supplier disputes by the headquarters or by the site

The ERP allows to work in team and to distribute tasks in project mode. This operational question will qualify the customer's need.

6 - The current percentage of losses and percentage of shrinkage? And the future target?
And the expected gain on the Foodcost (in percentage and in K€)

These questions allow to estimate the financial gain of the implementation of an ERP tool, as well as the capacity to self-finance the project with the ROI (return on investment).
For the Adoria ERP, the subscription is profitable from the first month thanks to the reduction of losses and savings generated on your purchases.

7 - Is the cash register system common to all sites, with a uniqueness of PLU codes?

A cash register x ERP interface allows to cross its real foodcost to the theoretical. For this, it is necessary to have a uniqueness of PLU codes, centralized at the headquarters level.
Having several cash register systems complicates the management of a unique code base.

8 - Do the sites have up-to-date computers with a good connection?

This is an important question: if the computers are not up to date, it is necessary to invest.
These are IT prerequisites to be done even before the ERP starts.

9 - Who will support the implementation of the project?

The implementation of an ERP requires a team that is involved and available to complete the project. Resources, roles and responsibilities must be clearly identified upstream.

10 - Who will train the sites?

The choice is free: training can be done internally or externally depending on your budget and resources.

11- Who will help the sites in "run" mode?

The integration of an ERP does not stop at the parameterization and deployment, it is a long-term project that must be followed with prepared and trained teams.

Now that you know the typical questions asked by an ERP provider, you can move forward with your ERP implementation project.

Adoria is THE 100% web-based, intuitive and high-performance platform for multi-site restaurants. It facilitates the daily life of restaurant owners by optimizing operations (purchasing, inventory, production) and management (foodcost and BI analysis). Need more advice? Feel free to contact our team.