What really happens when you switch ERP – honestly.

 A step-by-step implementation journey with Stephen Jackman.

Summary:

In this blog, we sit down with Stephen Jackman, one of our Migration and Integration Consultants, to explore what migration and integration is really like during your implementation journey, and how wholesale and distribution businesses move from legacy software to modern ERP platforms like GenetiQ Cloud.

Introduction:

Switching ERP systems is a big, carefully considered step that probably looks risky from the outside. However, it’s not as daunting as it sounds. I’m here to talk about what a typical ERP implementation journey looks like with a specific focus on migration and integration:

1. First things first: From "We need a new system” to your migration plan:  

Your project will most likely start with a growing sense that your current system has reached its limits. Your existing system may still work, but only with extra spreadsheets, manual steps, and integrations that need regular nursing.

Once you’ve carried out your research and chosen a new ERP system, the conversation quickly shifts from features to change. What needs to move? What can be dropped? How will your current process work in the new world?

To help you, we need to understand how you run your business today and where you want to get to.

At this first stage, the outputs are a migration roadmap and a clear scope for integration. For example, which courier, website, and payment systems will be brought across in phase one.

2. Data mapping: Translating your old world into the new

The first real piece of migration is data mapping.

With your team, we’ll look at your core data: customers, suppliers, products, pricing, stock, open orders, invoices, and balances. The basic question is: Where does this field in the old system go in the new system – or does it need to change completely?

Sometimes the answer is straightforward, often it’s not, and pricing is a classic example. Your business might rely on hundreds of customer-specific price lists in your old system, but the new ERP is built around price bands and rules that are far easier to manage long-term.

Out of this come data templates - usually spreadsheets - that show exactly how the new ERP expects information to be structured. Your internal team starts exporting, cleaning, and reshaping data into those templates.

“When you only have a few customers, that’s fine. But once you’re dealing with thousands, it becomes impossible to manage. We were duplicating data everywhere. It took too much time and increased the risk of errors,” said Dariusz Liszka, General Manager at Hitechniques

With GenetiQ’s help, Hitechniques got their data in order, reducing duplication and creating a more efficient way of working.

3. The first data cut is where migration stops being theoretical (and it’s not as scary as it sounds!)

Our team take your initial exports and transforms them into the new structure and loads them into a project environment. Suddenly, when you log into the new ERP, you see something that looks like your business: your customers, your product codes, your suppliers.

The first cut is usually one we own. We take your raw exports, transform them and get something in there, so it feels familiar for workshops, but this first cut doesn’t need to be perfect. Its job is to give everyone a shared, realistic view so that sales, operations, and finance workshops can happen in context.

E.g. A wholesale distributor can walk through real branch stock, real customers and live-looking pricing, even if it’s not yet final.

Your role at this stage is to explore and react. Does it feel like ‘you’? What’s obviously missing or wrong?

4. Multiple cuts: Iterating your way to clean data

One of the biggest myths about ERP data migration is that you only get one shot. In reality, we go through multiple. You can have three, four, five, six, depending on how happy you are with the data.

Each cut is iterative: sometimes your team refines the templates, and sometimes they simply add extra detail to an already solid base. We reload the data, you test real scenarios, and together we agree what needs adjusting for the next round.

Over time, your data becomes cleaner and more consistent; people get comfortable using the new system, and the risk around go-live drops sharply.

Ownership shifts as you go. The first cut is usually driven by our team. Later cuts are increasingly run by your staff, with the migration and integration team stepping in when you hit errors or need guidance.

It’s still important to take ownership and remember that it’s your data. It can feel like taking on two jobs at once for a while, but it’s also where many of the big wins appear: duplicate customers removed, obsolete products dropped, pricing simplified, and stock data finally lining up.

5. Integration: connecting the ERP to the outside world (and testing it properly)

With your core data in decent shape, attention turns to integration. This is where GenetiQ is connected to the other systems you rely on, so information flows automatically instead of being re-keyed.

Common examples include:

• E-commerce platforms (e.g. Magento)
• Courier and delivery tracking systems
• Payment gateways and card terminals such as Clover
• Marketplaces, EDI links and other trading partners

There’s usually a dedicated integration kick-off once there’s enough customer and product data in the system to make testing meaningful. For payment integrations especially, you need customers and products loaded, so the end-to-end flow makes sense.

This is also where key decisions are made, like which system should own customer records, how orders should flow, and what should happen when something changes, such as cancellations, refunds or part-shipments. It’s also important to remember that, while GenetiQ is highly customisable, it isn’t your old ERP, and trying to force old ways of working into the integration can be less efficient than adapting to how GenetiQ works.

Before anything goes live, we test the full journey in a safe environment using realistic scenarios. The aim is to prove the end-to-end flow, not just individual parts.

For example:

A customer places an order online. It lands in GenetiQ against the right account, with the right products and prices. The order is picked, dispatched, and confirmed with the courier, and tracking updates flow back to wherever your team or customers expect to see them.

Only when those paths work reliably in test do we line things up for go-live.

6. “Are we ready?”

As you move closer to go-live, you stop asking “can the system do it?” and start asking “are we ready to switch?”

By this point, you’ll usually have run key processes end-to-end in the new ERP, tested integrations under realistic conditions, and completed trial loads of stock and opening balances.

At this stage, the biggest risk to timelines isn’t technology, but time. Templates that sit untouched, decisions that get delayed, or questions that don’t get raised until the last minute can create pressure right before go-live.

Being responsive makes a huge difference. If we send templates or queries, filling them in promptly keeps momentum and avoids a pile-up later.

We’ll also sense-check the basics as we go, so anything big is caught early rather than on your first live trading day.

7. Go-live: what the switch really feels like

Eventually, a date is agreed, and the plan is locked in. Go-live itself is usually less dramatic than people expect, but it’s busy.

Typically, it looks like this:

• You freeze activity in the old system at an agreed time and take final extracts
• We load final stock, open orders and balances into GenetiQ Cloud using the same structures you’ve already rehearsed
• Key totals are checked, then integrations are switched from test to live

From that point on, new activity happens in the new system. Orders are entered, stock movements are recorded, and payments and invoices are driven from there.

Will everything be perfect on day one? No. There will be edge cases and teething issues. The difference is that you’re not on your own, and support is on hand as the team settles in.

Clarkes of Walsham described their go-live as very smooth and put that down to the relationship built with their consultant and project team: “From the outset, all the way through and even after our go-live, our implementation was nothing short of exceptional.”

So, what really happens when you switch?

You map and clean your data so it fits the new ERP. You load and test it in stages until it feels right. You connect the systems around it and prove the end-to-end flow. Then you cut over with a clear plan.

It is a lot of work, but it’s controlled, and you don’t have to do it alone.