The Realities of ERP Implementations for Greenhouse Growers
January 14, 2024 
As greenhouse growers experience success and business activity spikes, they often find the software they deployed to start up the business can longer keep up. Employees get frustrated, spending extra time chasing down information to process customer orders. Even worse, retailer customers may not get the plants and flowers they want when they want them.
That’s when it’s time to consider implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.
This article highlights the realities behind an ERP implementation to help greenhouse growers understand the overall process and what to expect. Just like any enterprise application, an ERP solution is a major undertaking. But with the proper planning and resources, growers can ensure their deployment goes as smoothly as possible.
What Is ERP?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) improves the efficiency and effectiveness of your business processes while also providing real-time data and reporting capabilities. The leading solutions offer functionality for every aspect of a greenhouse — from cultivation to supply chain, inventory, order fulfillment, accounting, and financial management.
In addition to increasing productivity by providing improved data accuracy that accelerates decision-making, an ERP system helps you identify cost savings opportunities. This enables you to increase the margins you earn on your plants and flowers.
How to Know When it’s Time to Invest in ERP
The time to invest in an ERP solution is typically signaled by difficulties in tracking costs and inventory, or when your production team uses manual processes to fulfill orders. Along those lines, it’s a good idea to take a comprehensive look at all your current software systems for managing cultivation, inventory, fulfillment, sales, and finances. Are they working efficiently?
Inventory is typically the biggest challenge. Everyone from sales to the warehouse seems uptight. What do we have? What can we sell? When will we have more?
To answer these questions, your processes need to scale with your business, and manual processes like shuffling spreadsheets to plan production do not scale. People are constantly on the phone or sending emails to figure out what’s going on. Since everyone uses their own spreadsheets and reports, the system isn’t centralized—making it difficult to share information and know what’s accurate in real time.
What Does an ERP Implementation Look Like?
The ERP implementation process typically includes a series of phases, such as analysis, design, testing, deployment, configuration, maintenance, and ongoing support for end-users. It can also include the integration of third-party software and external data sources.
Depending on the size of your organization and how long you have been in business, the ERP implementation process can be complex and time-consuming. But in the long run, a well-designed system greatly reduces the amount of time your team spends running day-to-day business workflows.
From a high-level perspective, here are the major aspects to plan for an ERP implementation:
Step 1 – Identify the scope of the project—To define the scope of your ERP implementation project, determine the specific tasks and processes the ERP system will drive:
- Which business functions and processes will you automate?
- What are the data migration and integration requirements?
- What key performance indicators (KPIs) do you want to track and report on?
- What are the specific needs and requirements of each department?
Also consider the data sources to integrate and the business objectives the system needs to support.
Step 2 – Assign a team to manage the project—The internal team you assign should be led by one person to manage the ERP project, but also include someone from all functional areas. By involving the key stakeholders upfront, you not only make sure the ERP solution does what the business requires, but also increase user adoption. Conduct status meetings every week with the team so everyone knows what’s happening and understands their expectations.
The point person is often someone from finance but could also be someone from operations. If possible, create a dedicated role so the project manager can focus on the ERP implementation and not be distracted by their regular job responsibilities.
The project manager also needs to be given the authority to make decisions and request people’s time across all departments. This may require backing them up with an executive sponsor who meets with them regularly for status updates and will go to bat for them if any roadblocks need to be removed.
Step 3 – Set expectations for users—By defining the scope of your ERP project (Step 1), you can create a clear roadmap for the implementation process and communicate the objectives and expected outcomes of the project to all stakeholders. This helps with employee buy-in so that the business can reap the full benefits of the solutions.
Additionally, by setting specific goals and objectives, you can measure the success of the project once it’s complete. This also helps determine whether the system provides the expected benefits and identifies areas for future improvement. Key metrics to track include cost savings, process improvements, improved efficiencies, reduced errors, data accuracy, user adoption, and ROI.
Step 4 – Create a realistic timeline—The project timeline should recognize that internal resources also have daily job responsibilities. If the project will extend into your busy spring season, it might make sense to put the project on hold and then resume your efforts when the busy season ends.
Also realize that scope creep will change the timeline and the budget. To manage this, develop a plan to determine how to handle the inevitable new ideas and requirements that typically pop up after the project begins.
Sometimes, changes are necessary, so you will choose to adjust. But in other cases, it may be best to hold off on making changes to the scope and file those ideas away for a second phase of the project. This allows your users to get comfortable with the new system first, and then you can implement enhancements later on.
The Role of an ERP Implementation Partner
ERP projects are expensive and take a big commitment. Collaborating with a partner minimizes the risk of the project taking too long to complete or ending in an outright failure.
One of the reasons an ERP implementation is so challenging is the simple fact that greenhouse growers don’t have much experience, if any, with ERP systems. It almost always makes sense to work with an implementation partner who understands the greenhouse industry and how ERP systems work.
A partner can offload much of the burden on the internal staff. And since they know the best practices to leverage as well as the pitfalls to avoid, they accelerate the deployment while reducing the risk of a failed deployment.
A partner also helps you ensure your business generates the full value of the ERP solution while earning a sufficient return on your investment. This level of knowledge is simply impossible to find among internal teams. Even if someone has managed an ERP implementation in the past, technology and best practices are always evolving.
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