Data migration projects are huge undertakings – with enterprise level firms often taking months to finalize their transformation. And that’s only when things go smoothly.
For many organizations, an ERP data migration aims to align the technology you’re using with future plans, including growth, the adoption of AI, and perhaps even new market entries. But in order to streamline operations and get more from your data, the pains and challenges of migration must happen first.
What are the most overlooked ERP migration challenges?
Generally speaking, ERP migration managers must ensure that their current data is not corrupted or lost as they transition to a new system. Clean vendor master data is the ultimate goal. And of course, firms must decide on an ERP data migration strategy.
This was something that candy company Haribo grappled with when they attempted to move from one ERP system to another:
“Soon after the go-live date, supply chain issues arose. The brand couldn’t track inventory or raw materials and wasn’t able to stock stores in a timely manner. As a result, shelves stayed bare, and sales dropped by around 25%.”
Here are some of the other challenges to consider:
- Data redundancy and inaccurate data
- Data mapping problems during migration
- Data validation failures during migration
- Data security and compliance risks
Data Redundancy And Inaccurate Data
Data redundancy happens when the same details are stored in multiple places. But the risks of losing data are often viewed as a greater challenge by migration teams, so teams end up backing up their sales contacts, duplicating their customer information and even using manual entry to fill in perceived gaps.
Similarly, inaccurate data can occur as teams fail to fully update their information during migration prep. This causes the wrong data to be copied over into the new system, with no trail to audit or validate how it got there.
To overcome this challenge, we recommend setting specific de-duplication checkpoints and maintaining ongoing vendor data cleansing. As part of the process, you should analyze the extent of the redundancy before the project starts, and set markers to merge or purge data throughout. Successful ERP data migration prioritizes checkpoints for data redundancy and accuracy, ensuring that data integrity is maintained throughout the transition.
Data Mapping Problems When Migrating Data
Field-to-field mapping issues typically happen when the data doesn’t directly integrate to a new system because there is misalignment between the origin and target. It’s like moving form responses from an excel spreadsheet to a hubspot report without formatting the data into the correct fields – but on a mega scale. And if your entire ERP implementation project is affected by this issue, it can:
- skew the historical data from your legacy system
- stretch ERP data migration timelines
- lead to poor data quality of the transferred data
Overcoming this challenge is all about ownership. By assigning multiple individuals the responsibility to navigate data mapping within their own domains, it ensures that each task can be overseen without drawing one person fully away from the rest of their workload. It’s also the type of task that can be managed with automation, so after set up is complete, much of the data can be mapped automatically.
Data Validation Failures During ERP Migration
Quality control is an incredibly important aspect of an ERP migration, but the scale of most transfers can make this a challenging feat. But how are managers expected to maintain the quality and integrity of the data without zooming into each line? And how can spotting data inconsistencies be made easy?
Our recommendation is to mandate automated data validation rules on your new ERP platform during the migration. By using a sampling technique, engineers can run small loads through the system first. Once this has been validated with the full attention of a data scientist, the migration can scale up and begin moving data through automation.
Data Security And Compliance Risks
Finally, much of the data that moves through an ERP solution is sensitive. Personal, confidential or regulated data all requires encryption, and it can be hard to maintain this security while the information is in transfer state. In terms of vendor master data in particular, companies hold sensitive payment details and business registration numbers that are attractive targets for fraudsters.
Overcoming this challenge requires:
- decisive access controls
- Four eyes policies (also known as the separation of duties)
- Marking specific fields based on their level of confidentiality, and thus encryption level
- Document retention, as per regulatory standards
How can teams overcome ERP data migration challenges?
For enterprise-level teams, ERP migration often comes with the help of external consultants or temporary hires. With these experts in your corner, you should find it easier to overcome the common ERP data migration challenges.
But there are some other ERP best practices to follow:
- Conduct a comprehensive data audit: you need to know exactly what data you hold, where it’s currently being stored, how accessible it needs to be, and what format it’s currently stored in. To adopt a clean-core master-data approach, this is the important first step.
- Create a data mapping plan: determine your target data formats and how quickly (or slowly) it might take to transfer the data, including converting it to a more aligned format. Document every transformation step to ensure you have an auditable trail and can align stakeholders.
- Define data governance roles: appoint a migration project owner. IT departments often manage migrations without input from business users, so assigning business data stewards across each department to ensure that the whole organization progresses as one.
- Schedule phased migration: every project must be broken into stages, and this type of timeline helps to ensure steps like validation can happen without encroaching on timelines. Then, test early and test often – inadequate testing can lead to system crashes during launch. We recommend enforcing rollback procedures as part of a contingency for failures, so that the project can continue to keep your data secure even when challenges do occur.
- Run reconciliation reports: after each load, reconciliation reports should help verify the success of the data migration to your new ERP system. It should also point out where exceptions exist, so that your team can capture them immediately, triage and overcome any gaps before they impact later activities.
What tools are available to help with vendor data cleansing?
Many businesses underestimate the part that vendor data cleaning has to play in the preparation for ERP migration, and certainly how easy it can make the transition. Crucially, we see around 30% of vendor master data files containing errors, creating a disconnect between the data and the teams that use it.
Without even realizing, these teams suffer from:
- risk-heightened decision-making
- increased risk of hallucination when applying automation
- lower resilience during stress
Tools like Trustpair exist to ensure teams have 100% confidence that their vendor data is clean before undertaking projects like an ERP data migration process. Overcome natural data decay as team members join, leave and move, and leverage ERP data automation safely through verified information with minimal disruption.
Trustpair works by:
- Detecting duplicates, obsolete records, and inconsistencies in supplier information
- Enriching vendor data with trusted third-party sources and smart-data enhancements for complete supplier profiles. This includes company and bank detail data.
- Verifying bank account ownership automatically to ensure payment details are valid and belong to legitimate suppliers.
- Maintaining data integrity over time with continuous monitoring and realtime alerts on any vendor data changes.
To learn more, explore our vendor data cleansing solution.
