Advice & Resources, Technology
By Tom Goatly, Business Director
– Last Updated: May 2026
Choosing the right ERP isn’t just a simple choice of systems – the key is understanding the talent question and why that matters more than the platform decision.
In a PE-backed business, the wrong ERP choice is expensive – but the wrong leadership around the right ERP choice is more expensive still. The system is rarely what fails. The implementation is.
For a privately owned or listed business, choosing the right ERP is a long-term infrastructure decision. For a PE-backed portfolio company, it is something more pressured: a commercial decision with a timeline attached, an exit horizon in view, and a board that will measure success in terms of reporting quality, integration capability, and eventual EBITDA impact.
That context changes everything. It changes which platforms are worth considering. It changes what implementation success actually means, and it changes the profile of the leadership you need in the room when the programme goes live.
The five platforms below are the ones we encounter most frequently across our work with PE portfolio companies. Each has a genuine use case and genuine limitations. Neither the use case nor the limitations are the whole story.
A practical view of the five platforms most commonly deployed across PE portfolio companies, assessed against the criteria that matter in a PE environment.
| Platform | Where it works | Where it bites | PE portfolio fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAP S/4HANA |
|
| Large, complex portfolio companies with international operations and a longer transformation horizon. Not a quick-win platform. |
| Oracle NetSuite |
|
| Mid-market portfolio businesses where speed to clean reporting matters more than deep vertical functionality. |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 |
|
| Portfolio companies looking for balance between cost, flexibility and ecosystem fit — with a strong implementation partner in place. |
| Infor CloudSuite |
|
| Operationally intensive businesses needing strong vertical capability without the SAP price point. |
| IFS Applications |
|
| Industrial services, construction and asset-heavy portfolio companies where vertical depth outweighs brand recognition. |
The table above is useful. It’s not the whole picture.
What it cannot capture is the single variable that determines whether an ERP implementation succeeds in a PE environment – the quality of the leadership sitting behind it.
We see this pattern repeatedly. A board selects the right platform for the business – appropriate scale, correct vertical fit, realistic implementation timeline. Six months in, the programme is off track. The technology is fine. The implementation partner is competent. What has failed is the interface between the business and the programme: a Finance Director who has never run a transformation, a Programme Lead without the seniority to hold internal stakeholders to decisions, or a change management function that was never properly resourced because the budget went to the licence.
In a PE environment, that failure is not just operationally painful. It is commercially expensive. Every month of delay is a month of poor reporting visibility. Every month of poor visibility is a question a buyer will ask at due diligence that you cannot answer cleanly.
The system you choose matters but the person you appoint to lead it matters more.
Read our case study about how we placed an interim director in a PE-backed business
Before committing to a platform, the questions that consistently separate successful implementations from expensive recoveries are:
The fifth question is the one most boards defer, when it should be the first.
At Broster Buchanan, our work with PE portfolio companies sits at the intersection of system selection and leadership capability. We are not ERP consultants. We do not advise on platform choice. What we do is place the finance and transformation talent that makes the platform decision work.
That means Finance Directors who have run ERP implementations in PE-backed environments and know what the board will ask at month six. It means interim Programme Managers who can be deployed quickly, integrate with an existing team, and govern delivery against a timeline that has commercial consequences. It means change management specialists who understand that adoption failure – users reverting to spreadsheets, parallel systems running indefinitely – is as expensive as technical failure.
Whether you are in the assessment phase, mid-implementation, or managing a programme that has lost momentum, the talent question does not change: who is accountable for making this work, and do they have the track record to do it?
If you are reviewing your ERP strategy or preparing for a system implementation across your portfolio, speak to our team and check out our Private Equity page for more information. We will connect you with the finance and transformation leadership that protects value and keeps your timeline on track – regardless of which platform sits underneath it.
Speak to the team about ERP leadership
We work with PE portfolio companies across finance recruitment, interim management, and business transformation. If your ERP programme needs the right leadership to deliver – permanent, interim, or fractional – we can help.
Which ERP is best for PE portfolio companies?
There is no single answer – platform fit depends on the size, sector, and transformation timeline of the portfolio company. NetSuite is the most common choice for mid-market businesses prioritising speed and clean financial reporting. SAP S/4HANA suits larger, more complex operations with longer horizons. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers the best balance of cost and flexibility for businesses already embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem. The platform matters less than the quality of the implementation and the talent driving it.
How long does ERP implementation take in a PE-backed business?
Typically between six and eighteen months, depending on the platform, the complexity of the existing infrastructure, and how much legacy data needs to be migrated. PE-backed businesses often face additional pressure to compress timelines ahead of exit, which makes experienced interim programme leadership more important – not less – than in a standard corporate implementation.
What are the biggest ERP risks in a private equity environment?
The most common risks are poor data quality inherited from pre-acquisition systems, underestimating the change management requirement, and selecting a platform without accounting for scalability through further acquisitions. A technically successful ERP implementation can still destroy value if user adoption is low or if financial reporting doesn’t deliver the visibility investors need.
When should a PE portfolio company bring in interim ERP talent?
At selection stage, not implementation stage. The decisions made during vendor selection and scoping directly shape every risk that follows. Bringing in experienced interim finance, programme, or transformation resource at the point of go-live is common. Bringing them in at the point of ERP selection is what protects value through the entire programme.
Does ERP choice affect exit value?
Yes, materially. Clean, auditable financial data and scalable reporting infrastructure are increasingly scrutinised during due diligence. A well-implemented ERP that gives acquirers confidence in data integrity and operational visibility can support a higher multiple. A poorly implemented one — or one that’s mid-migration at exit — creates uncertainty that acquirers price in.
Tom Goatly – Business Director
Executive Search, Interim and Business Transformation
t: +447518243627
e: tomgoatly@brosterbuchanan.com
