How long before the tender should you contact the company?

As early as possible, during the exploration phase, while the company is still trying to understand its own problem. At this stage, they'll listen to someone who helps them frame it. Once the requirements document is written, the criteria are locked in and you become just another vendor.

Who should you contact at a company changing its ERP?

Usually the CFO, the IT director where one exists, and the operations or plant director at a manufacturing company. At an SME with no IT director, it's often the CFO or the owner driving the project. The ERP project manager, meanwhile, gets hired once the project is already under way.

Is an ERP project manager job posting enough on its own as a signal?

It's a strong signal, but check two things: the date of the posting, and what it says. “Migration” or “rollout” in the title, a 12 to 18 month fixed-term contract, a named tool: that's a live project. An old or vague posting could just be a maintenance role.

Does e-invoicing really push companies to change their ERP?

Not always, but it forces every company to check that its tools can receive, then issue, electronic invoices. When the current tool can't keep up, the question of replacing it comes up. For an integrator, it's a dated, shared conversation starter across every company in scope.

ERP migration: the buying signals to watch for

An ERP doesn’t get changed on a whim. Between the moment a leadership team thinks “our system can’t keep up anymore” and the day a tender goes out, months often go by: audits, scoping, hiring, budget arbitration. Throughout all that time, the company leaves public traces.

Integrators, publishers and consulting firms who spot these traces arrive during the thinking phase. Everyone else arrives with the tender, alongside all their competitors.

Why does an ERP change show up before the tender?

Because it mobilises people before it mobilises a software budget. Someone needs to run the project, often a new finance or IT lead needs to be brought in to drive it, and sometimes an event makes the current tool simply untenable: an acquisition, a new site, a regulatory requirement.

These moves are public. They show up through job postings, LinkedIn role announcements, the business press, or executives speaking publicly. Taken one at a time, they’re clues. Cross-referenced and dated, they tell the story of a project.

What signals point to an ERP migration coming?

Signal	What it signals	Where to spot it
An ERP project manager hired, often on a 12 to 18 month fixed-term contract, with “migration” in the title	Project launched or about to launch	Job postings, LinkedIn
New CFO or new IT director in place less than three months	Likely review of tools and suppliers	Role announcements, trade press
Acquisition or merger announced	Two systems, two ways of working to reconcile	Business press, press releases
New site or subsidiary opening	More flows, stock and currencies to manage	Regional press, LinkedIn, company website
A tool named in a job posting (“proficiency in [tool] desired”)	Tool already chosen or being rolled out	Job postings
An executive or IT director talking about technical debt or an IT overhaul	Topic under internal review	Interviews, LinkedIn posts
A CFO commenting on posts about e-invoicing or management software migration	Active concern, often ahead of a decision	LinkedIn interactions
A management controller or supply chain manager hired with a “structure the processes” mandate	Current tools seen as insufficient	Job postings

None of these signals is enough on its own. An ERP project manager hired at a company that just acquired a competitor: that’s a project. A management controller hired with nothing else moving: that might just be a replacement hire. For how to sort them, see how to qualify a buying signal, and for using job postings, why a job posting is a buying signal.

Is e-invoicing a real trigger?

It’s the broadest trigger right now, because it affects every company at known dates. In France, current regulation (impots.gouv.fr, 2026) requires all companies to be able to receive electronic invoices from 1 September 2026. Large companies and mid-sized firms must also be able to issue them from that date, with SMEs and micro-businesses following from 1 September 2027 (source).

For many SMEs, the question isn’t settled yet: will the current tool be enough to issue invoices in 2027, or does it need replacing? A CFO commenting on posts about the reform, asking questions about choosing a platform, or whose company is hiring an accountant “comfortable with digitalisation” is already asking themselves this question.

Where does the project stand, and what should you offer at each stage?

The right message depends on the stage. Offering an ERP demo to a company that hasn’t even framed its need yet is too early. Offering a scoping session to a company that’s already chosen its tool is too late.

Exploration: a new CFO arrives, an executive talks about the limits of their current tool. Offer an outside perspective: the questions to ask, the common mistakes.
Scoping: a project manager or a consulting firm gets hired. Offer your expertise on a specific point: data migration, choosing between tools, a realistic timeline.
Selection: a tool is named in job postings, a tender is circulating. If you’re not already part of the conversation, target the angle everyone else is missing.
Rollout: key users get hired, training begins. This is where training providers, change management specialists and add-on module vendors come in.

Who should you contact within the company?

At a mid-sized company, the project is usually driven by the CFO and the IT director, with the operations or plant director involved for anything touching production and stock. At an SME with no IT director, it’s the CFO or the owner themselves. The ERP project manager, once hired, is a good contact for technical topics, but rarely decides alone.

Write to the person who owns the problem you solve. An integrator specialising in data migration should talk to the project manager. A software publisher should talk to the CFO. To map out the roles, see who really makes B2B buying decisions.

What opener should you write to a company preparing an ERP change?

The classic move is to reference the announcement, then run through your credentials. The prospect gets ten messages just like that the day their job posting goes live.

Illustrative example

Signal: a manufacturing company posts a job listing for an ERP project manager on an 18-month fixed-term contract, with “migration” in the title.

Failed opener: “Hi, I saw you’re hiring an ERP project manager. We’ve been an integrator for 15 years, with over 200 successful projects. Would you be free for a 15-minute call?”

Opener that gets a reply: “An ERP project manager on an 18-month contract usually means the tool is chosen or nearly there, and the real issue becomes data migration. At manufacturers your size, that’s where timelines tend to slip: bills of materials and stock are never as clean as everyone thought. Are you still at the scoping stage, or already choosing the integrator?”

The second version doesn’t just recite the announcement: it draws a conclusion from it, names a risk the prospect will recognise, and ends with a simple question about their situation. Same logic for a signal based on an interaction:

Illustrative example

Signal: the CFO of an 80-employee SME comments on several posts about issuing e-invoices in 2027.

Failed opener: “Hi, the e-invoicing reform is coming up. Our solution is compliant. Would you like a demo?”

Opener that gets a reply: “For a lot of SMEs, the real 2027 question isn’t the platform, it’s whether the current billing setup can produce clean invoices without manual rework. Have you had a chance to test what your current tool actually outputs?”

How do you move from a reply to a meeting?

When the person replies, they’ll usually tell you where they stand. Don’t skip the step: acknowledge it, ask a question about the timeline or who’s involved, then suggest a short call that’s genuinely useful to them. “30 minutes to walk through your risk points on data migration” is easier to accept than a sales presentation.

If the project is still a way off, note the timeline and come back at the right moment, with a new fact. An ERP change takes time: a useful early conversation during the exploration stage naturally puts you on the list once the choice is made.

What mistakes should you avoid?

Reaching out on an outdated posting. Date every job listing: a role filled three months ago makes your message irrelevant.
Writing to the wrong level. The project manager executes a project that’s already been decided. To be part of the choice, target the CFO or the owner.
Talking about your tool before their problem. They’re not looking for an ERP, they’re trying not to botch their migration.
Mistaking one signal for a whole project. A single hire doesn’t make a migration.

On LinkedIn, MeetMagnet’s signal-based prospecting AI tracks these signals every day, role changes, published hires and CFO or IT director reactions to the topics that matter to you, and writes the opener built on each one. The detail of the sources is on our buying signals page.

ERP migration: the signals that announce it's coming