Re-implementation vs. upgrade: Which process should you choose?

With execution cycles and time frames very similar for both re-implementation and upgrade projects, which is best for you? Look at both approaches to help you decide.

When we move from one major release to another of IFS Applications, we think about many things such as the functional improvements, the value your business will gain from the latest release, and of course, the costs to reach that point. What is also important to think about is the process to achieve that and from the work we have undertaken, we are seeing that the two approaches are much closer than you might think.

Re-implementation

The re-implementation approach focuses on moving through a sequence of structured steps, much like an initial implementation, however, the knowledge of the solution is detailed and comprehensive, allowing the focus to be on process improvement and helping to solve prevalent business challenges; hence the time and effort involved is significantly less than any new product implementation cycle.

The key to the re-implementation is the ‘prepare’ phase in our approach. This is where the project team focus on:

• Application Orientation and Knowledge Building (latest release)
• Data Transition Planning and Scripting – building migration scripts
• Solution Operation Validation – testing the end-to-end solution execution on the latest release
• Transition Pre-Test – executing a complete cycle of the migration process

Having proved the solution and written the transition scripts, the project moves to two formal test cycles, AST and user acceptance testing (UAT), to validate that the solution and data all operate as expected, before deployment to the live environment.

Baker Tilly works with their re-implementation clients to define an appropriate timeline to move though the project in a simple and structured way, deliver a successful re-implementation with has been oriented wholly to the business needs.

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