As an executive, you are asked to sign on the dotted line for a new ERP.
The Business Case is approved.
The selection panel has recommended.
Procurement has completed its process.
The contract is ready.
Now pause.
You are not approving software.
You are committing the organisation to a multi-year transformation.
Major capital.
Operational disruption.
Executive attention.
Your name attached to the outcome.
And yet, in many cases, you may not have a clear answer to one simple question:
How exactly will this system make us better?
Not technically better.
Not system-feature better.
Business better.
If you cannot articulate that, then you are not funding transformation.
You are funding activity.
So before you sign, define one thing clearly:
What does good look like?
Not in vendor language.
In executive language.
Ask each Director:
From your department’s perspective, when this ERP is live, what must be true for you to call it a success?
As CEO — I want real-time visibility of sales pipeline, utilisation and consolidated P&L.
As CFO — I want faster close cycles, clean data and fewer manual reconciliations.
As Operations — I want clear accountability across workflows and reduced rework.
Write it down.
Collate it.
Make it explicit.
This becomes the executive mandate.
The Project Team aligns to it.
The Steering Committee governs against it.
The vendor delivers to it.
Go-live is not success.
On budget is not success.
Configured is not success.
Success is delivering what you defined as good.
If you do not define it, the vendor will.
If you do not measure it, no one will.
Signing the contract is a financial act.
Defining “what good looks like” is a leadership act.
One spends money.
The other protects it.
