Most beverage producers think implementation starts at kickoff. After two decades in ERP consulting, I’d argue it starts the moment you sign the contract. What you do — or don’t do — in the weeks between signing and that first kickoff call has an outsized effect on everything that follows.
I’ve seen well-resourced, motivated beverage companies arrive at kickoff completely unprepared. Not because they didn’t care. Because no one told them what prepared actually looks like. And I’ve seen leaner teams that did the pre-work show up ready to move, and they consistently reach the go-live date faster, with fewer surprises and less rework along the way.
That gap is what this post is about.
Why the ERP Pre-Kickoff Window Gets Wasted
There’s a natural exhale that happens after a contract is signed. The evaluation is over, the decision is made, and the next big action (kickoff) is still weeks away. For a lot of teams, that window turns into a waiting period. For the ones who succeed, it’s a preparation period.
The difference matters. Implementation timelines are built around working sessions where we configure the system to match your actual workflows. If your team arrives at those sessions without a clear picture of how your operations actually run — not how you think they run, but how they run day-to-day — we end up doing discovery work that should have happened before we got in the room. That costs time, and in an implementation, time is money.
Document Your Workflows Before Anyone Asks You To
This is the single most impactful thing a producer can do in the pre-kickoff window, and it’s also the thing almost no one has done before the initial meeting.
Process documentation doesn’t have to be elaborate. What I’m asking for is clarity:
- How does a production order actually get created here?
- Who touches a purchase order before it’s approved?
- What does the month-end close process look like, and who owns each step?
If you can answer those questions in writing before kickoff, your configuration sessions will be dramatically more productive.
When that documentation doesn’t exist, your implementation team is essentially configuring a system around assumptions. Assumptions get corrected, but mid-project corrections are expensive.
If you’re in the middle of an implementation, this pre-work looks slightly different by category, but the principle holds across all of them.
Who Owns Your Data?
Data migration is one of the highest-risk phases of any ERP project. It’s also one of the easiest to derail. Not because the technical work is impossible, but because no one established clear ownership before the process started.
Before kickoff, every major data category — items, customers, vendors, open transactions, historical records — should have a named internal owner. That person is accountable for the accuracy of what comes over, the cleanup required before migration, and the validation on the other side.
When ownership isn’t assigned until mid-project, which is common, teams scramble. The people who should have been cleaning data for weeks are suddenly trying to do it in days. The data that comes over isn’t as clean as it should be, and your team spends the first months after go-live correcting records instead of using the system.
Name your data owners before kickoff. If you’re unsure what that process should look like, our team has a documented approach, and it’s worth asking about during your ERP implementation team planning conversations.
Does Your Organization Know Change Is Coming?
This one surprises people. The executive team has been involved in the evaluation for months. The project sponsor is aligned. But the rest of the organization? I’ve found that often they’ve heard almost nothing.
Your cellar team, your production supervisors, your accounting staff, your warehouse leads — these are the people who will use the system every day. When change arrives without warning, resistance follows. When people understand why the change is happening, what it means for them specifically, and who they can go to with questions, adoption goes faster, and the transition is smoother.
Build a simple internal communication plan before kickoff. Identify who needs to know what, when they should hear it, and from whom. Effective change management is crucial to implementation success, and the pre-kickoff window is the right time to get ahead of it.
Protecting Your Most Critical People
Every business has a short list of people whose institutional knowledge makes things run. In most beverage operations, those people are already stretched. When an ERP project lands in their lap without any bandwidth planning, one of two things happens: either the implementation suffers because they can’t show up to working sessions, or the operation suffers because they’re pulled out of it.
Before kickoff, identify the team members whose involvement is essential — your production manager, your controller, your IT lead, whoever owns the data and the processes you’re trying to move into the new system. Then have an honest conversation about how their time will be protected during the project.
This isn’t about reducing their workload. It’s about making sure the right people are available when the project needs them, rather than discovering mid-implementation that your key subject matter expert is running at 120% capacity and can’t be in the room.
What Does Kickoff-Ready Actually Look Like?
Here’s the practical version of everything above. Producers who arrive at kickoff prepared typically have:
- Current-state workflow documentation for their core operational and financial processes
- A named data owner for each major migration category, with a rough sense of data quality in each area
- An internal communication plan that has already reached key stakeholders — not just the project team
- A bandwidth plan that accounts for which team members will be needed during implementation and when
- Basic questions ready: What are your highest-priority pain points in the current system? What does success look like at go-live?
Producers who arrive unprepared spend the first two to three weeks of implementation in discovery, covering ground that could have been covered before anyone from our team was in the room.
This is Where ERP Outcomes Are Shaped
The decision to implement ERP is a significant one. But the decision alone doesn’t determine the outcome. How you show up to the process does.
Teams that treat the pre-kickoff window as a preparation phase, not a waiting period, consistently see better results: cleaner go-lives, faster adoption, and a system that reflects how their business actually works.
The Doozy Solutions implementation methodology is built around exactly this kind of intentional preparation. We’ve implemented Crafted ERP across every beverage category, and the pre-kickoff pattern holds true across all of them.
If you’re in that window right now, or if you’re approaching a contract decision and want to understand what preparation actually looks like, I’d encourage you to start the conversation early.
Ready to get ahead of your ERP implementation?
Our team works with beverage producers at every stage of the ERP journey, including before kickoff. Reach out to set up a demo or business analysis, and let’s talk about what preparation looks like for your operation.
Contact the Crafted ERP Team →
About Todd Lindley
Todd Lindley is head of services at Doozy Solutions, where he brings nearly two decades of consulting and implementation experience to beverage producers navigating ERP transitions. Before joining the team, he served as a certified NetSuite consultant and practice manager for one of the largest NetSuite partners in North America, working across operations, accounting, procurement, and system optimization since the early 2000s.
