ERP Selection Consultant, Switzerland

What Swiss buyers tend to compare, by company size

A Swiss shortlist should reflect the size and shape of the business, not the first integrator who called. In my selections the candidates usually fall into three groups.

• Small teams with simple stock or services: Zoho Books or the wider Zoho suite, Odoo with a narrow scope, and domestic cloud accounting such as Bexio, which many fiduciaries already know.
• Growing companies with production, projects or several entities: Odoo Enterprise, Dynamics 365 Business Central, ERPNext where open code and own hosting matter, and Swiss-developed suites such as Abacus.
• Groups with heavier consolidation or industry needs: Business Central at the upper end of its range, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, or a group template your parent already runs.

None of these is right by default. A Swiss-built package may fit the fiduciary relationship well yet be harder to extend for a foreign parent; an international suite may need partner apps for Swiss specifics. The longlist is cut using your must-have requirements, and every option dropped gets a written reason. If you need the wider picture of how I advise Swiss companies, see my ERP consultant page for Switzerland.

Swiss scenarios every demo must run

Standard demos are polished in the vendor's home market, which is rarely Switzerland. I replace them with scripts that make each shortlisted system work through the cases your staff handle every month:

• Issue a franc invoice with a QR-bill payment part, then match the incoming payment by its reference without manual keying.
• Scan or import a supplier QR-bill and pay it through a bank payment file in the format your bank accepts, then read the bank statement back.
• Post an import where customs VAT arrives on a separate document, and show where it lands for the VAT return your fiduciary prepares.
• Sell in euros, receive francs and show the exchange difference and the period-end revaluation.
• Print the same order confirmation in German and French, with labels and terms supplied by your team.
• Show how postings arrive from your separate Swiss payroll package, if payroll stays outside the ERP.

For every scenario your department heads note whether the system coped out of the box, after setup, with a partner app or only through development. That one distinction often separates two systems that looked equal in the sales meeting, because a Swiss feature delivered through a third-party app has its own cost, upgrade cycle and support contact. The requirement lines behind these scripts come from the kind of work described on my Swiss ERP business analyst page.

Reading offers from Swiss integrators side by side

Two integrators quoting the same product can hand you offers that are hard to compare. One counts configuration days generously and leaves data migration as a client task; another bundles Swiss apps, hosting and a support subscription into one figure. Comparing the totals tells you little.

I break each offer into the same lines: licenses or subscriptions, partner apps for Swiss functions, configuration, data migration, interfaces, multilingual print layouts, training, hosting and ongoing support. Line by line I mark whether the integrator delivers it, delivers it on stated conditions or expects your people to handle it. Typical gaps include:

• French or Italian layouts assumed to be a copy of the German ones, with no effort for review.
• Bank connectivity priced for one bank when the company uses several.
• Migration limited to master data, with open items and history left out.
• Senior consultants in the pitch and unnamed staff in the plan.

The gaps become a written clarification round, and the answers go into the scoring sheet. If you already hold offers and simply want them checked, my vendor proposal review covers that on its own.

Hosting, data protection and the contract

Swiss boards increasingly ask where ERP data is stored and who can reach it. The answer differs by vendor and even by edition: some offer a Swiss data center region, others host in the EU, and open-source systems can sit wherever you choose. I put the same written questions to every shortlisted vendor and integrator:

• Which region holds production data, backups and support copies.
• Which subprocessors have access, and from which countries.
• How access by support staff is logged and approved.
• How the full data set can be exported if you leave.

Your legal advisor reviews the answers against the Swiss data protection act and, where EU personal data is processed, GDPR. Legal judgment stays with them; my contribution is timing, so the answers arrive while they can still change the ranking.

The contract review follows the same logic. I check that the statement of work names the Swiss scenarios from the demos, that acceptance is tied to them, that partner apps carry their own support terms, and that a change request process with approval steps exists before work starts. Points that remain vague go back to the integrator in writing before signature, not after the kickoff.

How the selection runs remotely and what you keep

The selection runs remotely. Interviews, demo sessions and scoring meetings take place on video calls during the part of the day that overlaps between Switzerland and India, and every session ends with written notes. A visit can be added by arrangement if your board wants one meeting in person, but it is not required for the work.

At the end you hold a set of documents that belongs to you:

• The prioritized requirement list and the demo scripts.
• Scored demo results, with notes on where each system needed apps or development.
• A side-by-side view of integrator offers and their assumptions.
• Answers to the hosting questionnaire.
• A recommendation report and a list of contract points.

These documents keep their value after signature. The same scripts become acceptance tests, and the offer comparison becomes the baseline for scope control. If you want the selected integrator watched from your side during delivery, my ERP implementation consulting for Switzerland continues from this point. The general method is described under ERP vendor selection, and the Switzerland overview lists everything else I offer Swiss companies.