Every year, as November rolls in, lots of businesses try to squeeze in one more big goal before December: get their new system up and running. ERP implementation services are a popular target for this final push. The thinking goes, if we finish before year-end, we can launch fresh in January. But reality doesn’t often match the plan.
Everything gets tighter around the holidays: time, resources, and people's focus. Rushing an ERP project in between company parties, vacations, and peak workloads creates serious cracks. Too many teams underestimate how these factors collide and end up dealing with headaches that stretch well into the new year. It's not the project itself that fails; it's the timing, the pressure, and the things teams let slide when they feel rushed.
Unrealistic Holiday Timelines Push Projects Too Fast
We see it often. A company sets a go-live target for mid-December, thinking that gives them plenty of runway. But then they find out half the finance team is out the week after Thanksgiving, and IT has blackout dates for holiday on-call scheduling. What should have been a structured rollout turns into a sprint no one’s ready for.
- Project owners don’t always plan for vacation overlap or short weeks in late November and December
- Deliverables get rushed to meet arbitrary deadlines, not actual readiness
- When workloads increase and hours get longer, people make simple mistakes
Fatigue builds fast when the workload spikes and the margin for error is slim. During this time of year, oversight happens more often, and recovery takes longer. Simple miscommunications can snowball quickly, especially when people are distracted or counting down the days to time off. The stress of trying to hit year-end project goals stacks on top of already high seasonal demands, making everyone more likely to miss details or forget handoffs. In this rush, critical steps like cross-checking data, updating training materials, or testing backup processes can get skipped.
Key Stakeholders Are Often Unavailable
An ERP change isn’t just a technical project; it needs input from real people who understand how things work day-to-day. That’s where things hit a wall during the holidays. The people who know the full story or need to test and approve changes may suddenly be out of office.
- Approvals get delayed because stakeholders are on holiday leave
- User testing gets skipped or thinly done because the right people aren’t available
- Cross-department meetings get harder to schedule, stretching decision timelines
By the time key voices return, teams are already deep into deadlines. That’s when poor assumptions or missed questions come back to slow everything down. Details lost early in a project are difficult to recover, especially if crucial documentation is missing or if nobody remembers previous discussions. Even after the break, it is tough to regain momentum if the team has already lost track of critical conversations. Gaps in availability create gaps in knowledge, and this becomes a real problem for complicated projects like ERP implementations.
Overloading Systems While Operations Are in Peak Demand
Retail teams, inventory managers, and customer service departments, they’re all working harder during the holidays. Trying to roll out new systems while everything’s already at full load is a risky move.
- Holiday sales, shipping demands, or year-end processing strain systems
- Launching backend changes during this time adds pressure and increases system failure risks
- If something breaks or confuses users, help desks and IT queues grow fast
We’ve seen businesses try to flip to a new ERP flow while customer orders pile up and year-end reconciliations happen. The rollout barely gets attention, and when it misfires, nobody has time to clean it up fast enough. When everyone’s energy is focused on hitting holiday and year-end targets, there is little room for learning and adapting to a brand-new tool. The overlap between rollout and peak operations can stretch staff too thin, making it hard to spot subtle issues before they become bigger problems. Rising pressure in both day-to-day work and project tasks makes for a messy rollout that is tough to recover from.
Lack of Contingency Planning for Holiday Rollouts
The holidays require backup plans that account for limited availability, slower responses, and gaps in support. But many ERP implementation plans don’t factor that in.
- Backup staff may not be trained to jump in if someone leaves mid-project
- Holiday-specific error tracking or rollback options often go unprepared
- If consultants or internal developers don’t work through the break, fixes pause
Without a fallback plan, even a small misstep can snowball. There are fewer people available to solve problems, and communications drag. Some businesses end up halfway launched with no clear path out of it until the new year begins. Lack of a well-defined plan for emergencies slows progress to a crawl. If support personnel are unavailable, or if critical errors go undetected, it’s tough to restore lost data or bring systems back online quickly. Businesses can spend weeks just trying to undo holiday missteps, which cuts into productive time.
Recovery Wastes Time Better Spent on Strategic Planning
The hardest part of failing during a holiday ERP push is the recovery. Time meant for recharging or Q1 planning becomes focused on damage control. Rework and support drag into January, and teams lose momentum.
- Missed training windows mean retraining or starting from scratch
- Reprocessing data or rebuilding configurations can take away from more meaningful priorities
- Q1 kickoffs get delayed due to hangover incidents from December
Instead of starting clean, businesses limp into the new year carrying leftovers from the past-month scramble. That’s a morale hit, and it throws off larger goals. When January arrives, everyone wants a fresh start, but unresolved holiday issues quickly become roadblocks. The recovery process is often frustrating and repetitive, with teams fixing the same problems multiple times because of hasty decisions made earlier. The toll on team energy and focus can be bigger than expected, leading to even bigger delays in rolling out new features or meeting broader business initiatives. These setbacks can extend far past January if the right lessons are not learned.
What Happens When You Plan for the Holidays the Right Way
ERP efforts around the holidays don’t have to fail. When we step back and match project plans to real seasonal conditions, the outcome shifts. It’s not just about adjusting timelines; it’s about planning for people, availability, and workload at the same time.
- Start earlier in the fall or push real launch dates into early January
- Make sure key stakeholders are aligned on availability and expectations
- Build gaps into the schedule for testing, backup, and downtime follow-up
When the rush clears, what’s left should be a smoother rollout that supports business needs for Q1, not scrambles to fix what went wrong in December. A cleaner transition helps everybody begin the new year with fewer regrets and more focus on what really matters. More thoughtful plans mean downtime is shorter, and everyone is able to get settled into the new system when business is calmer. With the right setup, training goes smoother and fewer mistakes happen, making for a less stressful start to Q1. By fitting project work around natural business cycles, organizations spend less time cleaning up and more time building toward real goals.
Why Turn to Kodershop for Your ERP Rollout?
We specialize in custom ERP solutions tailored to each client’s unique business processes, reducing the chance of issues caused by generic approaches. Our teams provide full-cycle ERP services, from initial consultation and system design to integration, customization, and post-launch support, allowing for adjustments in real time as needs shift during seasonal rushes. With extensive experience coordinating global delivery across time zones, our US-based team in New York helps clients avoid pitfalls common in year-end rollouts.
Planning a year-end system change works best when timing, staffing, and workload all align, which only happens with the right preparation from the start. When internal resources are stretched or there's uncertainty about where to begin, exploring how our ERP implementation services can support your rollout from start to finish makes a real difference. We’ve seen how small oversights during the holiday season can snowball into costly delays, so we take the time to build with the season, not against it. Ready for a more stable rollout? Reach out to us to start planning.