Better ERP Procurement 

"The procurement process for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be long and complicated—involving a cross-functional team that represents business owners, technical experts and procurement and legal specialists. Typically, procurements for such back-office systems happen only once every 15 to 20 years—a “once-in-a-career” event for many who go through the process. Yet the complicated nature of these programs and their fundamental importance in keeping the state government running efficiently and effectively demand real expertise on the part of the state team.

"Given the infrequency of procurements of such scale within a typical government organization, however, such expertise can be hard to come by. Accenture has responded to literally thousands of requests for proposals (RFPs)—with hundreds in the public sector and, among those, dozens related to very large-scale, transformational programs. That experience has given us insight into commonalities among RFPs that position an organization for post-procurement success and sustainable high performance.

Accenture has developed this short paper to share these four guiding principles of strong ERP RFPs to help individuals new to the ERP procurement process.