Your Next ERP Project Doesn't Have to Be the One That Breaks You
Talk to anyone in a municipal finance or IT department about replacing their ERP, and the reaction is almost always the same: a deep breath, followed by something like, "We know we need to, we just don't know how to get there."
That's the reality for a lot of municipalities right now. The system that runs payroll, manages purchasing, tracks budgets, and handles accounts payable is aging out. Maybe the vendor has signalled end of life. Maybe the workarounds have gotten so layered that nobody fully understands how the thing holds together anymore.
And yet, despite knowing the clock is ticking, many municipalities are stuck. Not because they lack motivation, but because the sheer scale of an ERP replacement feels overwhelming for teams that are already stretched thin.
Why ERP Projects Stall Before They Even Start
We see the same pattern over and over again. A municipality knows their ERP needs replacing. Leadership agrees. Staff are frustrated. But the project sits on the roadmap for years because:
The scope feels impossibly wide. ERP touches finance, HR, payroll, procurement, operations, and sometimes asset management. Getting requirements from all of those areas while keeping the lights on is a massive lift.
Nobody on staff has done this before. Most municipal teams get one ERP replacement in a career, if that. There's no playbook in a drawer somewhere.
The vendor landscape is confusing. Municipal ERP is a niche market with a handful of major players and a lot of noise. Without deep knowledge of what's out there, it's hard to know what questions to even ask.
The RFP process alone is a full time job. Requirements gathering, scoring criteria, procurement rules, legal review, vendor evaluation, demos, reference checks, contract negotiation, all layered on top of everyone's actual full time jobs.
And so the project waits. Another budget cycle passes. The workarounds multiply. And the risk quietly grows.
What Actually Goes Wrong
When municipalities do finally move forward without the right support, a few common patterns show up:
Requirements miss the mark. Too vague, or too detailed in the wrong places. Vendors can't give meaningful responses.
Evaluation doesn't surface real differences. Every vendor demo looks impressive the first time. The differences that matter in implementation don't always show up in a standard demo script.
Change management gets treated as an afterthought. An ERP replacement changes how people do their jobs every single day. Skip planning for that and you end up with a system nobody uses properly.
Old processes get replicated in the new system. That's how you end up paying a fortune for customizations that make the system harder to maintain and harder to upgrade.
The bottom line: ERP projects don't usually fail because of bad technology. They fail because the planning, procurement, and preparation weren't set up for success.
How We Help
At Perry Group, ERP planning and procurement is one of the areas we work in most often. Our consultants have sat on the municipal side of these projects. They've managed the implementations, dealt with the vendor politics, fought the scope creep, and learned what actually works.
Here's what working with us looks like:
Getting aligned on what you actually need. Before anyone writes a requirement, we work with your team to understand what's broken, what's working, and what the organization needs from a new system. Not a theoretical wish list, but a grounded picture of your operations and priorities.
Building requirements that work. We bring baseline municipal ERP requirements refined across dozens of similar projects. Your team doesn't start from a blank page. They react, refine, and shape the requirements to fit your situation.
Running procurement built for municipal reality. We work alongside your procurement team on strategy, templates, timelines, and legal requirements. We handle the heavy drafting, manage vendor questions, coordinate evaluations, set up demos, support reference checks, and help with contract negotiations.
Keeping business process improvement in the picture. We push clients to think about process improvement before and during procurement, not after. The goal isn't to replicate your old way of working in a new system. It's to use the transition to clean things up.
Setting the stage for implementation success. By the time a preferred vendor is selected, your team has a clear, documented picture of what's coming: the scope, the risks, the change management needs, and what implementation will actually require.
What municipalities tell us: The biggest shift is that ERP stops feeling like a looming crisis and starts feeling like a manageable, well structured project. That's not a small thing when you're talking about the system that runs the financial backbone of your entire organization.
Why This Matters Right Now
Municipal ERP systems across Canada are aging. Vendors are sunsetting products. Cloud migration pressures are building. Staff who know the current system inside and out are retiring. And the longer organizations wait, the harder and more expensive the transition becomes.
The municipalities that come through this well won't be the ones who found a magic vendor or had unlimited budgets. They'll be the ones who planned properly, ran a solid procurement, and set themselves up to implement with confidence.
If your municipality is facing an ERP replacement and thinking, "We know what we need to do, we just don't have the capacity to do it right," you're not alone.
If you want help making your next ERP project less stressful and more successful, let's talk.