You Inherited a Broken ERP. Now What?
Chadi Abi Fadel
PLAI
You didn't choose this ERP. You inherited it. Maybe you bought the company. Maybe you got promoted into the mess. Maybe the person who implemented it left, and now nobody knows how it works.
The reports are wrong. The workflows don't match how anyone actually works. And when you ask the vendor for help, they quote you six figures to "re-implement."
You don't need a re-implementation. You need a recovery.
Why Most Inherited ERPs Are Broken
The original implementation probably failed for one of three reasons:
1. It was configured for a company that doesn't exist. The consultant asked what the company should look like, not what it actually does. So you got best practices instead of your practices.
2. The data was migrated wrong. Someone exported the old system, ran a script, and called it done. Now you have duplicate records, orphaned transactions, and numbers that don't add up.
3. Nobody was trained properly. The go-live was rushed. Training was a two-hour session that nobody remembers. So people built workarounds in spreadsheets, and the ERP became a checkbox that nobody trusts.
The Three Types of ERP Mess
The Ghost ERP
People enter data because they have to, but nobody uses the output. Real decisions happen in Excel. The ERP is technically running but functionally dead.
Fix: Audit what reports actually get used. Kill everything else. Rebuild trust one workflow at a time.
The Frankenstein ERP
Over the years, people added customizations. Then more customizations. Now nobody can upgrade because everything breaks. The vendor doesn't support half the modules you're running.
Fix: Document what each customization does. Figure out what's still needed vs. what was a workaround for a problem that no longer exists. Simplify before you upgrade.
The Partially Alive ERP
Some departments use it correctly. Others have abandoned it entirely. You have three sources of truth and none of them agree.
Fix: Pick one department that's working. Understand why. Expand from there, not from the broken parts.
What Not to Do
Don't start over. A new ERP won't fix an organization that doesn't know how to implement an ERP. You'll just have a more expensive mess.
Don't blame the software. SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Odoo—they all work fine when implemented correctly. The problem isn't the tool.
Don't trust the original documentation. Whatever was written during implementation is probably wrong now. Document what actually happens, not what was planned.
What to Do Instead
Step 1: Forensic audit. Walk through actual transactions. Follow the data from source to report. Find where it breaks.
Step 2: Identify the minimum viable ERP. What actually needs to work? Not everything. Just the core processes that run the business.
Step 3: Fix the data. Not all of it. Start with the data that feeds the reports people actually use. Clean, validate, reconcile.
Step 4: Retrain on reality. Not a generic training session. Walk through the actual workflows your team uses, with your actual data.
Step 5: Build trust slowly. Start with one report that works. Make sure it matches reality. Then the next one. Trust compounds.
The Recovery Timeline
Six months is typical for a real ERP recovery. Not a re-implementation—a recovery.
- Month 1: Forensic audit. Understand what's actually broken.
- Month 2: Data cleanup. Focus on high-impact records first.
- Month 3-4: Workflow fixes. One process at a time.
- Month 5: Training and documentation.
- Month 6: Monitoring and stabilization.
That's if you do it right. If you try to fix everything at once, it takes longer and usually fails.
When to Actually Start Over
Sometimes the ERP is truly unsalvageable:
- The vendor is dead or has abandoned the product
- The technology is so old it can't run on modern infrastructure
- The data is so corrupted that recovery would cost more than replacement
- The business has changed so fundamentally that the old system can't adapt
But these cases are rarer than vendors would have you believe. Most of the time, recovery is faster, cheaper, and less risky than replacement.
Stuck with someone else's broken ERP? Book a discovery call and we'll help you figure out whether to recover or replace—and how to do it without losing your mind.