ERP Rescue Consultant, Kuwait

When a group rollout stalls after the first company

A phased rollout is a sensible approach for a Kuwaiti group with trading, contracting, services or franchise companies under one ownership. It limits risk and lets the group learn before committing every company. But it has a specific failure mode: the pilot company absorbs so much effort that the program never reaches the second wave.

The signs tend to look like this:

• The pilot company is live but still needs the partner's daily help to close the month or post stock correctly.
• Intercompany transactions between the pilot and other group companies are handled through spreadsheets and email.
• The template designed for the pilot does not fit the next company, and the partner is quoting new design work.
• Owners receive group figures later than before the ERP, not sooner.
• Licenses for companies not yet live are already being paid for.
• Nobody can say with confidence when the next company will go live.

At this point the program needs a pause for facts, not another push. A rescue does not assume the platform or the partner was wrong. It establishes what is actually happening and why, so the owners can make a decision based on evidence. The general recovery approach is described on the ERP recovery page; this page covers how it plays out in a Kuwaiti group.

Fact-finding across companies and with the owners

In a family group, the people with the authority to decide are rarely the people closest to the ERP. The owners hear about the project through the CFO, the IT manager and the partner, each with a different view. The first task is to replace those competing accounts with a single, factual picture.

I gather it remotely, through separate conversations with finance and operations staff in the live company, the heads of the companies waiting for their turn, internal IT and the partner. Alongside the interviews, I review the documents and the system:

• The original proposal, statement of work, group template design and change requests.
• What is configured and working end to end in the pilot company.
• Open issues, their age and who is responsible for each.
• How effort and budget have been spent across design, build, support and rework.

The result is an owner briefing: short, plain and supported by evidence. It covers where the program stands, why it stalled, what the realistic options are and what each would demand from the group. I can present it to the chairman or family board directly, remotely, and answer questions in the session. Sensitive points, such as performance issues inside the group, are discussed first with the sponsor.

Stabilizing month-end and intercompany balances

Before the program can restart, the company already live must be dependable. That means it can invoice, buy, manage stock and close its month without heroic effort. I work with the group's accountant and the partner to rank the pilot's open issues by their effect on those basics and fix the most damaging ones first.

Intercompany balances usually need particular attention in a stalled rollout, because one company is on the new ERP while its sister companies are still on older systems. Transactions between them are recorded twice, in different tools, by different people, and the balances drift apart. The repair has three parts:

• Reconcile current balances between the live company and each counterparty, documenting every difference and agreeing corrections with finance.
• Put a simple interim process in place for new cross-company transactions, with one side responsible for initiating and the other for confirming.
• Check that opening intercompany positions loaded at go-live were correct, and correct them if not.

Dinar precision gets checked at the same time. If amounts are passing between systems with different decimal handling, residual differences will keep appearing. Kuwait has no VAT, but group companies elsewhere in the GCC may have tax obligations; any question there goes to your advisor. The go-live support page explains the close checks in general terms.

Rethinking the rollout sequence and the partner arrangement

Once the pilot is stable, the group template needs an honest review. A template built too closely around the first company may not suit a contracting or franchise business with different processes. I compare the template with the documented needs of the companies still waiting and identify what can be reused, what needs extending and what was pilot-specific.

The rollout plan is then rebuilt around readiness rather than the original calendar. Each company gets entry criteria before its go-live can be scheduled: clean master data, trained key users, agreed processes, tested intercompany flows and a finance team available for cutover. Companies that are ready go first, regardless of the original order.

The partner's role is clarified in the same exercise. Questions to settle include who supports the live company while the next wave is built, how many people the partner can assign, what the group handles internally and how change requests are approved. I facilitate that conversation neutrally, using the documented scope as the reference. If the partner cannot commit to a credible plan, I help prepare a handover and compare alternatives. Contract terms, notice and payment disputes are reviewed by your lawyer, using the factual summary I prepare. For background on how partner proposals for phased rollouts are compared, see the Kuwait ERP selection page.

Continue, re-scope or re-platform for the group

The owners' decision comes down to three paths, and I set each out in writing with its demands on the group.

Re-scoping is often underrated. Not every company in a group needs to share one platform, and a franchise business with heavy point-of-sale needs may be better served differently from a contracting company. What matters is that group reporting and intercompany flows work across whatever systems remain.

Re-platforming is the most disruptive path, so I treat it as a conclusion that must be demonstrated. Where every company is already live and the issue is confidence in the numbers, an ERP audit in Kuwait may be the better first step. For ongoing client-side leadership of the next waves, see the Kuwait implementation consultant page or the Kuwait overview.