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Most organisations buy ERP support imagining a ticket queue. The queue matters, but it is the smallest part of keeping an ERP healthy. The work that keeps the system worth what you paid for it is mostly invisible from the outside.

Keeping current

Cloud ERP releases on the vendor's schedule, not yours. Someone has to read the release notes, work out what touches your customisations, regression-test the ones that do and schedule the update around your close. Skip that for a few cycles and you are back to a version-locked system with a migration project attached.

Working the backlog

Every ERP goes live with a list of things deferred to phase two. Without a standing capacity to work that list, phase two never happens — the requirement gets solved in a spreadsheet instead, and the spreadsheet becomes the system of record for that process.

What a support model should state

• response and resolution targets by severity, with real hours behind them
• who can raise what, and how an incident becomes a change
• the release and patch calendar, agreed against your financial calendar
• a monthly view of what was fixed, what changed and what is queued

Support is what stops today going wrong. The rest is what stops next year going wrong.