Is Business Process Management the Cure for ERP Workarounds?

ERP systems are designed to bring order to complexity, but many organizations discover that their new ERP platform has quietly become riddled with workarounds and process variation. 

The result is a familiar paradox: a modern system that still relies on spreadsheets, tribal knowledge, and manual processes.

This post explores how business process management (BPM) can serve as a strategic lever for fixing ERP workarounds, restoring process governance, and elevating business performance across industries.

The Root of ERP Workarounds: Process Variation and Governance Gaps

• Users struggling with non-intuitive workflows

• Legacy processes that were never reengineered during implementation

• Business units operating under different rules with no clear governance

• Users struggling with poor data structures and mismatched field mappings

• Systems that lack reliable integrations (i.e., POS integration with ERP)

Real-World Example 

A global aerospace and defense manufacturer engaged Panorama because employees were still relying heavily on Excel years after an ERP implementation. The organization lacked process standardization, governance, and alignment across stakeholders, resulting in inconsistent system usage and no measurable ERP benefits. 

Panorama recognized the need to address internal organizational issues prior to another software upgrade. Our ERP consultants helped the company prepare for the upgrade by assessing the executive leadership team and project governance framework. 

By engaging the leadership team at key milestones throughout the project and coaching them regarding their roles, we increased executive and stakeholder alignment which enabled business process standardization.

What is Business Process Management & When Should You Use it?

Business process management is often misunderstood as a documentation exercise or a pre-implementation step. In reality, BPM is a continuous discipline that aligns process design, execution, and optimization with strategic goals.

At its core, BPM enables organizations to:

• Define and monitor process performance

• Identify bottlenecks and pain points

• Introduce process improvements in a controlled, measurable way

Timing matters. Here’s how project teams should think about when to use business process management:

• Before ERP Selection: BPM can help define future-state process requirements, identify areas of complexity, and clarify which workflows must remain unique across business units. This early clarity strengthens the ERP selection process by ensuring it’s grounded in operational realities.

• During Implementation: As design workshops begin, BPM becomes essential to align cross-functional stakeholders on process standardization and change impacts. It also helps teams validate whether proposed ERP configurations match desired workflows—or whether workarounds are being quietly reintroduced.

• After Go-Live: Post-implementation is when BPM delivers some of its highest value. Once the system is in use, hidden process variation and usability issues often surface. BPM enables a structured approach to resolving these issues and embedding process controls within the ERP. For example, a manufacturer with complex quality requirements might discover during a post-go-live assessment that different regional facilities are recording quality control data inconsistently. By conducting BPM workshops, the organization can surface these deviations, align stakeholders around unified processes, and embed them into the ERP.

Process Optimization Requires More Than Software

Too many ERP projects confuse configuration with transformation. While designing drop-down menus and approval workflows is important, the ERP will only digitize dysfunction if the underlying process is broken.

ERP process optimization requires organizations to revisit core processes across the People, Process, and Data dimensions:

• People: Who owns the process? Who are the decision-makers, influencers, and super users? Have they been trained and empowered?
  

• Process: Are the workflows aligned with operational realities? Do they reflect current compliance, customer, and supplier requirements?

• Data: Are inputs structured, validated, and governed? Are outputs usable for downstream reporting and decisions?

Fixing Process Variation Through Governance

Organizations often respond to ERP process drift by enforcing compliance—locking down fields, limiting access, or creating elaborate approval chains. However, these measures treat symptoms, not causes.

What works better is ERP process governance: a structured way to manage process ownership, accountability, and change over time.

Effective ERP process governance includes:

• Process councils or working groups with cross-functional representation
  

• Change request protocols to evaluate and implement new requirements

• Ongoing process audits to assess alignment between system use and business needs

Strategic Recommendations for Executives

C-level leaders often inherit ERP systems that reflect years of compromises, shortcuts, and local adaptations. Fixing these issues through reimplementation is costly and disruptive. But fixing ERP workarounds through business process management is often more feasible—and more impactful.

Here are some strategic actions executives should consider:

• Establish Process Visibility Before Enforcing Discipline – Launch a process discovery initiative using BPM tools and stakeholder interviews to document how processes actually function across departments.
  

• Invest in Cross-Functional Process Ownership – Assign process stewards who can champion alignment across business units, escalate conflicts, and track process health over time.
  

• Link BPM Initiatives to Business KPIs – Process improvement should drive outcomes, like faster order fulfillment, cleaner month-end close, and better compliance rates.
  

• Treat ERP Configuration as a Living Asset – Ensure that business process changes are mirrored in system configuration and that change logs reflect these updates.

• Use BPM to Support Post-Go-Live Optimization – Too many organizations assume the system is “done” after go-live. In reality, this is the best time to use BPM to address emerging workarounds.

Learn More About ERP Process Optimization

Whether your organization is in manufacturing, healthcare, or distribution, the principles remain the same: Fixing process variation and optimizing ERP usage require visibility, ownership, and governance.

Panorama’s independent advisory model is designed for these moments. We help organizations evaluate ERP process governance structures, conduct BPM workshops, and eliminate workarounds that undermine ROI. Contact our business process management consultants to learn more.