Who implements your ERP
Acunomic was founded by five entrepreneurially minded people. On one side, architects and presales consultants from the leading ERP vendors, from SAP to Oracle to Microsoft. On the other, accountants. Between them, they spent more than two dozen years at those companies, and they know the good, the bad and the ugly of ERP projects.
They grew tired of how large ERP companies operate and of how much value gets lost along the way, so they set up on their own. Today they run Acunomic as an ERP consulting boutique, on purpose: we work with smaller companies, where we can deliver real value, and we choose the projects we take on.
Success starts at go-live
Most projects celebrate the go-live. We treat it as the starting line: success can only begin when the people who run the business run it on the new system. Our accountants know this well. They carry the scars of go-lives and data migrations, and they are proud of them.
That is why we stay with our clients for the long term, and why we price our work for the long term, not for the go-live alone.
A method we follow to the letter
To get there reliably and swiftly, we follow a comprehensive method to the letter: ACUMENTIQUE. We do not pretend to make complex work simple. We make it manageable. Finance is complex, and we make it manageable for the people who carry the responsibility and do the work.
- Initiate
- Analyse
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Support
ACUMENTIQUE is a waterfall at heart, with loops where they help. Six stages, each closed by a quality gate: a stage ends when its deliverables are complete, tested where they can be tested, and signed. The six stages
Inside the stages, the work runs in streams from A to Z, from administration and business analysis to cutover, go-live and hypercare. Every deliverable carries its stream's letter and a number, and every project starts from our project templates. Streams from A to Z
Streams that move at their own pace
The functional streams, such as the general ledger, order-to-cash and procure-to-pay, move through the stages on their own rhythm. The project management office keeps dependencies and the timeline in view, and user adoption keeps the people who will use the system in the room from the first week.
General Ledger
- Initiate
- Analyse
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Support
Order Management
order-to-cash
- Initiate
- Analyse
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Support
Procurement
procure-to-pay
- Initiate
- Analyse
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Support
Project Management
- Initiate
- Analyse
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Support
Industry streams
production, service, assets: as your business needs
- Initiate
- Analyse
- Build
- Test
- Deploy
- Support
Governance is the first stream, not an afterthought: who decides what, how often the project meets, how the plan is kept, and how the system landscape and its releases are run. Project governance
Process first, technology second
Before any stream configures anything, its lead drafts the Target Operating Model for that scope: policies, processes and people, and only then technology.
Use the arrow keys to move between the parts of the model.
Direction
Vision
Why the business exists and where it wants to be. Everything below it, from the business idea to the last system setting, should trace back to it.
Direction
Mission
What the business does, for whom, day after day, to move towards the vision. It decides which ideas, plans and strategies belong to the business at all.
Direction
Strategy
The choices that turn vision and mission into priorities: the business strategies and, derived from them, one strategy per function. In the operating model, strategy ends where policies begin.
Direction
Tactics
How the strategy is carried out: the processes that run the work, the people who run the processes and the technology that enables both. This is the part of the model an ERP implementation touches most.
Corporate pyramid
Business idea
Connect the vision and mission to the customer need the business exists to meet. Make the intended value explicit before deciding how to organise delivery.
Evidence: an agreed purpose, target customers and the value promised to them.
Corporate pyramid
Business plan
Describe the business model, expected demand, resources and economics. Test whether the ambition can be sustained and which assumptions need evidence.
Evidence: a viable plan, measurable outcomes and accountable owners.
Corporate pyramid
Business strategies
Choose where to compete, how to serve customers and which capabilities the business must develop. Translate corporate choices into coherent priorities for each function.
Evidence: agreed priorities, capability gaps and a coordinated change portfolio.
Functions
Functional strategies
Selected function
Each function derives its own strategy from the business strategies: research and development, marketing, sales, contracting, service, support, HR, IT and finance. Each function then needs an operating model of its own; the model enlarges Finance as the example.
Functions
Finance Target Operating Model
The finance strategy made operational in four layers, agreed in this order: policies, processes, people and technology. In an implementation, every functional stream drafts the same four layers for its own scope before anything is configured.
Technical services (customisation and integration) follow the functional leads. Never the other way round.
Target Operating Model
Policies
What the business has decided, and why: approval limits, credit rules, revenue recognition, what counts as a project.
Processes are understood in terms of their purpose, not merely as "how we have always done it".
Role in operationalisation
Leader & Director of Operationalisation
- Simple & Clear, not Complex & Vague
Evidence: policy owners, approval limits and agreed treatment of exceptions.
Target Operating Model
Processes
How those decisions are executed, end to end.
Role in operationalisation
Leader & Director of Operationalisation
- executing streamlined Processes
Evidence: future process maps, control points and representative acceptance scenarios.
Target Operating Model
People
Who executes each step, with which skills, in which location and language.
The right people are identified early and enter the testing and training plans by name, so availability gaps and staff transitions are called before they become risks.
Role in operationalisation
Organisation of Resources for Operationalisation
- executing streamlined Processes
Evidence: role ownership, access needs, capacity commitments and a training plan.
Target Operating Model
Technology
Which system, which configuration, which integration supports the three layers above.
The 3Ps are the three layers above: policies, processes and people.
Role in operationalisation
Enabler & Accelerator of Operationalisation
- enabling the predefined 3Ps
- executing streamlined Processes
Evidence: a traceable solution design, tested configurations and assigned operational ownership.
Why not keep it lean and agile?
The idea that an agile approach, or no fixed method at all, keeps an ERP project lean and simple is a fallacy. Nobody runs an airport without standard operating procedures, because a complex system needs them, and an ERP runs a company. Complex systems need a good method. Why not "just agile"