What Makes the Best ERP for an Enterprise Business in 2025 — and How to Choose One?

Is the best erp for small business the same as the best erp for large business? What should you be looking for?

Some months back there were a couple of headlines on why Indian sizes are not reflected, or fairly accommodated, in shoe-size charts of global brands. Every pair of feet is different from others. The standards that are common to one region, height, profession and climate cannot be used in a cut-and-copy-paste mode for another one.

And yet, we walk in shoes that are made for someone else. Thinking we don’t have enough time or choice. We ignore all the shoe-bites, suffocation, sweat and discomfort that arise due to this decision. Sometimes this discomfort leads to long-standing injuries and life-long handicaps – and it’s, often, late before one realises the mistake

ERP is that shoe. Most businesses, let’s face it, do not spend enough time, scrutiny, effort and negotiations in finding the perfect fit. Some even commit the usual blunder of choosing what the top giants are using. What a mistake! What a short-sighted choice!

The Wrong Pick in ERP for an Enterprise Business is

• An ERP that does not fit to your organisation’s size
• An ERP that is not conversant with your industry’s issues
• An ERP that is a replica of a large ERP global product
• An ERP that cannot be configured to your data uniqueness
• An ERP that does not hand-hold your employees and transition-path
• An ERP that involves a lot of migration burden
• An ERP that has is laden with hidden costs and security issues
• An ERP that makes you compromise on control and data safety
• An ERP that creates intractable integration issues
• An ERP that creates another process-monster

Don’t worry. You are not alone. You are not beyond rescue. As soon as you realise that you might have been walking in the wrong ERP shoe or about to choose a misfit, it is time to hit the pause button and take some time for reflection.

Finding the best ERP for an Enterprise Business

The best erp for enterprise business is one that liberates your organisation and people from costs, hassles, extra work and unnecessary tasks- not add to all that. So start by asking your ERP partner if the company/solution can provide:

• Deep automation
• Built-in intelligence
• Process assessment and reconfiguration
• Leaner data-processing
• Actionable data approach
• Data-to-insights translation
• Deep-seated security and compliance confidence
• Integration and organisation-wide training
• Enablement of process-level agility
• Empowerment to decision-makers
• Enterprise-wide collaboration
• Better visibility and control

Once these criteria are ticked-off, then it’s time to ask the hard question. Are you ready for the process-pivot that accompanies any ERP? And what’s your enterprise-scale? Do you want to embrace an ERP for today for tomorrow’s appetite? Your measurement-tape will matter a lot at this stage. The best erp for small business will be something that gives you a tight-knit, lean, agile version of a full-blown ERP but without any hidden costs or unnecessary asterisks or workload instances. When you choose a good fit (link), you will be able to incorporate something that helps you in going faster on your growth path. It will equip you with data, decisions and speed for the ambitions you have in growing – whether vertically or horizontally. As suggested in the Panorama Consulting Group’s The 2023 ERP report, when selecting an ERP system, you should consider the functionality that your organisation will need in the next five to ten years.

Best ERP- In The Medium to Large Range

Similarly, a good fit (link) as the best erp for Medium business will help that enterprise to add the much-needed scalability and information-actionability that business needs. It will also bring in easy process fluency and data collaboration across many vendors, business areas and regions that the business has in its ambit.

When it comes to the best erp for large business, the challenges take a different shape. This time, the enterprise needs a solution that can confidently cover data and processes sprawled across many geographies, languages, regulators and siloes. It needs to break boundaries and empower a cohesive view of data- without sacrificing on compliance or data residency requirements.

You also need to consider the absence, presence and the degree of customisation requirements. The 2023 ERP report showed that about seven per cent went for no customisation and 11.5 per cent opted for no customisation but system configuration and personalisation. About 15.8 per cent fell in the same category with process modifications to add. And 20.8 per cent chose heavy customisation to fit the processes. Some went for big-bang implementations (20.8 per cent), and some for phased approach by module (27. 9 per cent), some by location (18 per cent) and some by business unit (12.6 per cent).

Every business size will have its own constraints, confidence level, preferences as well as opportunities and goalposts. The best erp for enterprise business is about deleting the challenges and underlining the path towards new growth. It should allow the business to run confidently and without falling on invisible stumbling blocks of data, process-delays, compliance penalties or poor decisions. It should not need any shoe-horning.