You’ve spent months evaluating ERP platforms, sitting through demos, debating scope, and rallying your team around a go-live date. When that date finally arrives and the system is up and running, it feels like the finish line. The project is “done.” Everyone exhales.
Then a few weeks pass. Reports don’t match what leadership expected. Workflows that seemed fine in testing feel clunky in practice. Users have questions no one anticipated, and the implementation team that was so responsive last month is nowhere to be found.
At Stellar One, we’ve deployed Acumatica for businesses across industries, and we’ve seen and heard about this pattern playing out over and over. ERP partners who disappear after go-live leave their members to figure out the hardest part of ERP ownership on their own.
In this article, we’ll walk you through why go-live marks the start of your ERP journey, what changes once your team starts using the platform day to day, and what strong post-launch support should look like. By the end, you’ll know what to ask prospective ERP partners so you can evaluate the relationship that follows implementation.
Why Do So Many ERP Projects Treat Go-Live as the Finish Line?
Historically, ERP projects have been scoped like construction projects. There’s a start date, a deliverables checklist, and a go-live milestone that signals “project complete.” Once the system is stable, the implementation team moves on.
This framing made more sense when ERP systems were on-premises, heavily customized, and expensive to change. But modern cloud ERP platforms are designed to evolve. They receive regular updates, integrate with other tools, and adapt to shifting business needs.
Companies don’t freeze after go-live either. They add products, enter new markets, hire team members, and adjust processes. When go-live becomes an exit point for your ERP partner instead of a transition point, the long-term value of the investment suffers.
Where Is ERP Value Actually Created?
Implementation lays the foundation, but the foundation alone doesn’t generate results. The real gains show up after go-live, when teams are working inside the system every day. Post-go-live improvements typically include things like:
- Refining workflows based on how teams actually use the system, rather than how they predicted they’d use it
- Building and improving reports as leadership interacts with live data and asks sharper questions
- Automating repetitive tasks that become obvious only once the system is in daily use
- Adjusting configurations as the business grows, adds locations, or shifts how it serves its members
These improvements require a partner who stays engaged and knows your system well enough to help you act on those insights. Without ongoing support, ERP platforms tend to remain static while the business moves forward, and the gap between the two creates frustration instead of clarity.
What Changes Occur After Go-Live That You Can’t Plan For?
No matter how thorough your implementation, go-live changes everything. As we discuss in our article on why ERP implementations feel harder than they need to be, ERP systems are designed to be refined over time and improved as the business grows. Once teams begin using the platform in real time, a few things consistently happen that are difficult to anticipate during planning:
- Workarounds reveal themselves as users encounter scenarios that weren’t fully addressed during configuration
- Reporting needs evolve as leaders see what the data can actually tell them
- Bottlenecks surface in places no one expected
- User confidence grows, and with it comes better, more specific questioning about what the platform can do
This period is completely normal. An ERP platform isn’t fully understood until it’s being used. The learning phase that follows ERP go-live is where the most meaningful improvements happen, and cutting their team off from expert support during that window is one of the costliest mistakes a buyer can make.
How Does Continuous Improvement Help Your ERP Platform Pay Off?
The first version of any ERP deployment is rarely the best version. It’s functional and stable, but it’s not yet optimized. Optimization happens through iteration, not speculation. Over time, teams with access to strong post-launch support make incremental improvements that compound into serious efficiency gains: automating data entry and approval routing, standardizing reports, reducing manual handoffs between departments, and eliminating configurations that no longer serve the business.
Each of these changes may seem small in isolation, but together they create meaningful gains in speed, accuracy, and visibility. Continuous improvement isn’t a sign that something went wrong during implementation. It’s a sign that the system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
What Happens When ERP Support Disappears After Go-Live?
In the traditional ERP model, go-live marks a sharp shift in priorities for the provider. The implementation team moves on. Consultants rotate out. Support becomes reactive, billable by the hour, or difficult to access.
For the business, the consequences are predictable. Small issues linger because no one wants to open a support ticket that generates an invoice. Teams develop workarounds instead of fixing root causes. Adoption plateaus because users don’t have anyone to ask when they hit a wall.
Over time, the ERP platform becomes something the organization tolerates instead of relies on. That’s a support failure that has nothing to do with the software, and it’s one of the biggest reasons businesses switch ERP partners.
Why Should You Treat Your ERP Platform as a Strategic Asset?
Your ERP platform sits at the core of your business. It touches finance, operations, inventory, planning, and reporting. Treating it like a one-time project limits the return you’ll ever see from it. As Stellar One’s founder, Richard Sellar, writes in his ERP Manifesto:
“An ERP system is the engine that runs the core of your business. It is an enabler of communication, planning, and reporting. It should constantly be evolving as your business grows and changes. The biggest part of your ERP journey is not implementation, it’s what happens afterward.”
Richard has also pointed out that buyers will spend at least ten times the cost of their initial implementation on their ERP system after go-live. If that’s the case, then the quality of your post-go-live partnership isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the single most important factor in whether your investment pays off.
What Should You Ask ERP Providers About Life After Go-Live?
If go-live is truly the beginning, then the questions you ask during evaluation need to reflect that:
- Who supports us after the system goes live, and is it the same team that handled our implementation?
- How are post-go-live improvements identified and prioritized?
- What does ongoing engagement look like, and how often will we interact with your team?
- How are support and optimization priced? Will we receive an invoice every time we ask a question?
- How will you help us adapt as our business grows and our needs change?
If a provider gets vague when the conversation shifts to post-go-live support, take note. That’s often where real gaps in the partnership show up.
How Does Stellar One Approach Post-Go-Live Support?
Stellar One’s model is intentionally built around post-go-live success. Our revenue doesn’t begin until members are live on the system, which means we have every incentive to get you up and running quickly and to make sure the experience that follows is worth staying for.
Your Stellar One subscription will include unlimited support and training, so there should be no hesitation about reaching out when your team has a question. After go-live, our Member Success Managers will stay with you to help your team build confidence, identify opportunities for automation and process improvement, and make the platform more valuable over time.
The same team that handled your implementation will continue working with you through later stages, building institutional knowledge that makes every future improvement faster.
What Should Your Next Steps Be After Evaluating Post-Go-Live ERP Support?
Go-live is where your ERP journey can truly begin. The implementation sets the stage, but the automation, reporting refinements, and operational insights that follow are where the real value lives. Now that you understand why post-launch support matters and what to look for in a long-term partner, you’re better equipped to evaluate your options with the right priorities in mind.
Without strong post-go-live support, even the best ERP platform can stagnate. Small issues become big workarounds, adoption reaches a plateau, and the system stops keeping pace with your business. That problem compounds over time, and it’s one of the biggest reasons businesses end up dissatisfied with their ERP investment.
If you want to learn more about all things ERP solutions, explore our learning center, where you’ll find practical, no-nonsense resources on everything from costs to choosing the right platform. These articles are designed to help you make confident decisions at every stage of the buying process, and they’re a great place to keep building the knowledge you’ve started here.
At Stellar One, we’re an Acumatica Gold-Certified Partner built for the kind of long-term ERP partnership most providers only talk about. From Free Deployment to a 5-Year Price Lock to unlimited post-go-live support, our model is designed to earn your trust every month. Click below to take the fit quiz and find out if we’re the right partner for you.
Frequently Asked Questions About ERP After Go-Live