ERP Adoption - Nine Feet Tall

Why ERP Adoption Matters

ERP adoption is all about the shift from investment to impact. No matter how robust your chosen system, the real value of ERP only emerges when your people embrace new ways of working. Successful adoption means your teams are equipped, engaged, and confident, enabling your organisation to drive efficiencies, streamline processes, and make data-driven decisions with confidence. Automation and self-service also enable you to increase your people’s capability so they focus more on value-add activities to the wider business. When adoption is prioritised, you see improvements in collaboration, data integrity, and overall business performance, turning your ERP from a technical solution into a strategic asset.

At Nine Feet Tall, we know that ERP adoption is much more than just a technical rollout. ERP adoption is business transformation. It’s about aligning your technology with your people and processes, ensuring everyone understands the “why” behind the change and feels supported throughout the journey. Without strong adoption, even the best ERP systems will fall short of expectations, leading to significant wasted investment, missed benefits and frustrated teams. Ultimately, strong ERP adoption will allow you to realise strategic benefits.

Key Steps to Successful ERP Adoption

Achieving successful ERP adoption requires a structured and people-focused approach. Here are some key steps to successful ERP adoption inspired by Kotter’s 8 steps to business change:

Expectations

Set clear expectations and communicate the vision for change from the outset. (Involve your people developing your vision!)

Stakeholder Engagement

Engage stakeholders early, listening to their concerns and gathering insights to shape the adoption strategy.

Training

Provide practical, role-based training that builds confidence and capability.

Ongoing Support

Offer ongoing support and resources beyond go-live to sustain momentum.

Feedback

Encourage feedback and celebrate early wins to reinforce positive behaviours.

Change Management

Embed change management throughout the process to ensure new ways of working take hold, becoming the norm.

This approach creates an environment where adoption is embraced, enabling the benefits of ERP to be realised across your organisation.

Digital Adoption

Discover what Digital Adoption really means and learn about strategies that will help increase ROI, highlight methods to increase the effectiveness of your adoption, and draw from lived experiences of challenges with digital adoption in our complete guide on Digital Adoption.

Digital Adoption Guide

Overcoming Common ERP Adoption Challenges

ERP adoption often encounters hurdles such as resistance to change, unclear processes, and concerns about new technology. Teams may worry about losing control or struggle to see the value in changing established routines. Data migration and integration issues can also create uncertainty and disrupt day-to-day operations if not managed carefully.

To overcome these challenges, it’s important to remain open and develop trust with your teams. Address concerns head-on, provide clear and consistent communication, and involve users in shaping the solution. Early identification of adoption barriers allows you to adapt your approach, offer targeted support, and keep the programme moving forward with satisfied teams. With the right focus, these challenges become opportunities to strengthen engagement and drive lasting change.

Driving User Engagement and Change Management

Driving user engagement is critical for successful ERP adoption. Change management needs to be a part of every stage of the journey. Start by making the case for change clear and relevant to each team, connecting the new system to their day-to-day work and long-term goals. Equip leaders to champion the change, modelling new behaviours and encouraging others to do the same.

Practical, hands-on training and accessible support channels help to build confidence and reduce anxiety. Recognise and celebrate progress, sharing success stories to inspire others. By maintaining open lines of communication and actively listening to feedback, you can create a sense of ownership and momentum. At Nine Feet Tall, we help organisations turn change into a positive experience, ensuring your ERP adoption delivers real results and sets your business up for continued growth.

How We Work With You

We will take the pain away and get projects over the line. We bring a practical and pragmatic approach to project recovery from our people-focused team. We thrive on the difficult and succeed by understanding stakeholder sensitivities with an agile and ‘just enough’ approach. We re-build momentum, bring back the passion and help get back on track, whilst supporting teams to deliver successful go live.