Before becoming a cybersecurity consultant at Provadys, Tristan Pinceaux was a systems administrator at the ISC-PIF research institute in Paris and at Orange. He then became an analyst specialising in threat intelligence and incident response for the cybersecurity team at Airbus Defence and Space. Tristan spoke to Akuiteo about the latest cybersecurity concerns for companies.

Founded in 1997, AREP is a subsidiary of the French national rail operator SNCF. This multidisciplinary construction and urban-planning consultancy employs nearly 900 members of staff and combines skills in architecture, engineering, urban planning and design. Damien Saillant, Tools and Methods Manager from the company’s Finance Department, looks back at the support his company received when it rolled out a new ERP solution.

IT really came of age between the 1980s and the 2000s. Companies invested in uniform, standardised and often inflexible management software backed by vendor-integrator giants. Today, however, needs have changed. Everything is new: regulations, billing methods, types of customer relations and customer demands. From now on, your ERP software must support these ongoing developments. And that means that it must be agile.

Picking a new ERP software is a bit like selling a house: you don’t want to make a mistake, so you try to make a sensible decision based on objective and costed arguments. You draw up a list of criteria “for” and “against” and you attempt to completely control the process by putting a number on every last detail. But how do you choose between lots of ostensibly similar packages? At some point, when it comes to picking an ERP solution (much like choosing a house), you just have to take the plunge.

The ERP market is in fantastic shape. In France, it pulled in almost 3 billion euros in 2016 and analysts forecast an average annual growth of 3.5% until 2020¹. With more than 2,500 stakeholders in France alone, software publishing now very much looks like a new digital El Dorado. But companies often doubt whether each new El Dorado is fact or fiction. Their main fear: the vendor will go out of business and their tool will be orphaned. So, the first thing you should do before signing a contract is to check the sustainability of an ERP publisher.

Your company has just rolled out a new ERP solution. Future users have taken part in a few hours of training and they have all the information they could ever need. Job done! You can relax now—or can you? Three problems could rear their ugly heads, making it tricky to use your new tool and throwing your company’s operations off kilter.

You’ve made your decision and you now have a contract in front of you that sets out the legal ins and outs of your project… for better or for worse. How can you be certain that this ERP contract is the right one for your company’s project, its quirks, constraints and any possible developments along the way? Read on to find out which three elements you should keep a particular eye on during the contract process for your new ERP software.

You’re the chief financial officer at your company. You’ve been at the helm for years if not decades. You’re used to taking decisions. And you normally know best. But choosing an ERP solution is a whole new ball game and perhaps it’s time to admit that you could do with some help.

ERP software is your company’s backbone and its features dictate how your staff work. So it’s only normal that you want to draw up a list of ERP specifications before any consultation with a vendor. But watch out! Your never-ending list, encompassing each department’s heart’s desire, could end up being useless. And here’s why.

Choosing an ERP solution means starting a long-term professional relationship with a new partner. To make it seem like one long honeymoon, you have to pick the right tool. It has to suit your company’s needs right now, but it should also be able to adapt to problems you’ll face in the future. So, how do you know whether a generic or specialised solution is the best one to support you every step of the way?