What I wish I’d asked before signing our ERP contract
Nobody goes into an ERP implementation expecting it to go badly. You've done your research on the platform. You've sat through the demos. You've compared pricing models and read the case studies and convinced your board that this is the right move.
And then, somewhere between signing and go-live, the cracks appear.
We've spoken to a lot of business leaders who've been through difficult ERP projects. And the thing they almost all have in common? There were questions they wish they'd asked before they signed - questions that seemed less important at the time than the platform features and the price.
Here are the ones that matter most.
"Who will actually be working on our project?"
This sounds obvious, but it's one of the most important questions you can ask - and one of the easiest to overlook when you're dazzled by a well-presented sales process.
The people who sell you the implementation are rarely the people who deliver it. That's not necessarily a problem, but you need to know who your actual project team will be. What's their experience level? How many implementations have they led? Have they worked in your sector before?
Ask to meet the consultant who will be leading your project before you sign. Ask about their background. Ask who else will be on the team and what their roles will be. A good implementation partner will welcome those questions. Anyone who deflects them should give you pause.
A strong sales team backed by an inexperienced delivery team is one of the most common patterns behind disappointing implementations. Don't find out which one you've got after the contract is signed.
"What happens when something unexpected comes up mid-project?"
It will. That's not pessimism - it's just the reality of any complex business transformation. A key stakeholder leaves. A regulatory change lands at an inconvenient moment. An integration behaves unexpectedly in testing. Requirements that seemed clear in discovery turn out to be more complicated once you're in the build.
What you need to know is how your implementation partner handles it.
Do they have a clear change control process that gives you visibility and control over scope changes? Do they have the depth of expertise to problem-solve under pressure, or do they escalate everything to a senior consultant who isn't embedded in your project? Do they communicate proactively when something changes, or do you find out through a delayed timeline?
Ask for a specific example of how they've navigated a significant mid-project challenge on a recent implementation. Listen carefully to the answer - not just for what they did, but for how they talk about it. Experience and honesty about difficulty are both good signs.
"How do you approach change management and user adoption?"
If your implementation partner's answer to this question focuses primarily on training sessions and user guides, push a little harder.
Training is necessary but not sufficient. What you really want to understand is how they manage the human side of a major system change - how they identify resistance early, how they keep stakeholders engaged throughout the project, and what they do in the critical weeks after go-live when your team is using the system under real pressure for the first time.
Ask whether they run stakeholder engagement sessions during discovery. Ask how they structure training, is it role-based and tailored to how your teams actually work, or is it a generic walkthrough of system features? Ask what their post-go-live support model looks like and how long it runs.
Change management is where a lot of implementations quietly fail. A partner who has a thoughtful, specific answer to this question has probably learned from experience. A partner who gives you a vague answer probably hasn't prioritised it - and you'll feel the difference after go-live.
"What does your post-go-live support look like?"
Go-live is not the end of the project. For most businesses, it's the beginning of the most challenging phase - the point at which your team is using the system in anger for the first time, under real deadline pressure, with real data.
Issues will arise. Questions will surface that nobody thought to ask in training. Processes that seemed fine in testing will turn out to need adjustment in practice.
What you need to know is what support looks like during that period. Is there a dedicated resource available to you? What are the response times? Is there a structured hypercare period built into the project plan, or does support essentially end at go-live?
Beyond the immediate post-live period, ask about the longer-term support model. As your business evolves, your NetSuite configuration will need to evolve with it. Who looks after that? What does the ongoing relationship look like?
The best implementation partners think beyond go-live from the very beginning of the project. They're not just delivering a system - they're establishing a long-term partnership.
"How do you use AI tools in your implementation process, and who oversees them?"
This one is increasingly important to ask, and not because AI tools are a bad thing — they're not. Used well, they can make implementations faster and more accurate. But used without sufficient human oversight, they can also introduce risks that aren't immediately obvious.
Ask your implementation partner to be specific about where and how they use AI in their process. What tasks does it support? Who reviews the outputs? How do they ensure that AI-assisted recommendations are validated against the actual nuances of your business?
The answer you want is one that treats AI as a useful tool in the hands of experienced consultants - not a replacement for them. If a partner's implementation methodology relies heavily on automated tools with minimal human oversight, that's worth understanding clearly before you commit.
One more question — the one most people don't ask
"Can you tell me about an implementation that didn't go as planned, and what you did about it?"
Every implementation partner with real experience has had projects that didn't go smoothly. Anyone who tells you otherwise either hasn't done enough of them or isn't being honest with you. What matters is how they respond when things go wrong - and asking this question directly tells you a lot about the culture of accountability within the organisation.
A good answer involves honesty about what went wrong, clarity about how they responded, and reflection on what they changed as a result. That kind of candour is a very good indicator of the partner you'll get when your own project hits a difficult moment.
Asking the right questions before you sign isn't about being difficult or distrustful. It's about making sure the partner you choose can genuinely deliver what they're promising - and that your business is protected if the road gets bumpy.
At 3EN Group, we welcome every one of these questions. We've been answering them for years - and we're proud of the answers we can give.
Ready to have an honest conversation about your NetSuite implementation? We're here.