Bangalore: Ever since businesses started evolving during the 80's, Enterprise Resource Planning has been a critical ingredient for many organizations to mount the success ladder. The very fact that ERP can reduce process time; cost and man power has been the most alluring factor for many companies to adopt it. Today any startup for that matter does not take off without a strong foundation in ERP. 'Competent ERP is the spinal column of any successful Company'. Although all said and done, to arrive at a proficient ERP there are lot of stumbling blocks that a company faces, be it the planning, implementation or ERP vendors, everything from begin to end is a brain storming process during which companies still forget some essential points. Listed below are some of the commonly made mistakes by Jennifer Lonoff Schiff for ComputerWorld when a company decides to tie the knot with an ERP. 1. Meager Planning: Kevin Beasley, CIO of VAI, a provider of ERP software and solutions to mid-market and enterprise-level organizations, agrees. "Many organizations do not do enough up-front planning before they begin an ERP software evaluation," he says. "This often leads to confusion down the road because they might not fully understand their current processes and how to evolve them to maximize business benefits and efficiencies."Shifting from one form of practice to another will require intense investigation. Firstly, the problems faced in the present form of practice, second, what changes are required, and third, what needs to be retained. Answering these will help you plan an adept ERP project. It is a plan for an alteration which will minimize potential problems and scales the return on investment (ROI) of the organization. Costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, and requiring hundreds of man hours to implement, ERP systems are huge investments of money, resources and time, hence a very strong structure of planning is required. An Internal audit is most suited solution which helps you gauge the company's processes and policies and accordingly an ERP project can be implemented.