ERP Readiness Scorecard
Most failed system projects were already in trouble before the software was chosen. Eight questions on the things that actually decide it — data, process, ownership, time.
Full guide: From spreadsheets to ERP, without the drama →
Lower score means more ready. This scorecard weighs preparation, not ambition — a low-readiness business can still succeed, it just needs to fix the foundations before signing anything.
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At this point the scorecard has told you what it can. What it can't tell you is the sequence — which gap to close first, and which ones will quietly close themselves once you fix another.
Bring your score to a 20-minute Zoom review. We'll turn it into a sequence: what to fix now, what to fix during implementation, and what to ignore.
Request your 20-min systems review Not ready? Get the weekly playbooks insteadWhat the ERP readiness scorecard checks
Most failed system projects were in trouble before the software was chosen. The scorecard asks eight questions about the foundations that decide the outcome:
- whether your core processes are written down
- who owns the project and can make decisions
- how clean your customer and product lists are
- whether you know what today's process costs
- whether leadership has agreed the problem to solve
- whether there is budget beyond the software licence
- whether key people will have real time during implementation
- how many exceptions and workarounds your standard process has
How to read your score
Each answer scores 0, 1 or 2, so the total runs from 0 to 16. Lower means more ready.
- 0 to 3, Ready to build: the risk now is choosing too broad a scope, not readiness.
- 4 to 7, Nearly ready: a couple of foundations need work, fixable in weeks.
- 8 to 11, Foundations needed first: two or three months of groundwork would change the cost of the whole project.
- 12 to 16, Not yet: a system now would digitise the chaos rather than remove it.
The foundations worth fixing before you buy
Write down the five processes that make you money, give the project one owner, and clean your customer and product data first (master data vs transactional data explains why). Agree the problem in one sentence, budget for implementation and training as well as licences, and free up your key users. For the money side, the free ERP ROI calculator shows the payback.
Questions
What is an ERP readiness assessment? A short check of the foundations that decide whether an ERP project succeeds: documented processes, ownership, clean data, a known cost of today's process, agreed goals, budget, people's time and the number of exceptions.
Is a low score good? Yes. Lower means more ready. 0 to 3 is ready to build; 12 to 16 means fix the foundations before buying software.
Does the scorecard recommend a specific ERP? No. It names no vendor. It tells you what to fix first, whichever system you choose.
