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LKQ’s German ERP went live in April. It now expects a Europe segment EBITDA margin of 4.1% to 5.1%, against 10.0% a year earlier. The ERP is among the causes. Settle the data and the training before your own go-live

LKQ Corporation supplies vehicle repair parts in North America, Europe and Taiwan. On 23 October 2026 it said it expects a preliminary third-quarter Europe segment EBITDA margin of 4.1% to 5.1%. A year earlier it was 10.0%.

Among the causes, LKQ named disruption from its new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in Germany, switched on in April. Does the case you signed with your integrator price the months after go-live? LKQ’s quarter is about those months.

Below: LKQ’s words before and after, one thing to settle before your go-live, and one question for your integrator.

The cost arrived after the switch-on

For Europe, LKQ’s release names “operational disruptions associated with the ERP implementation in Germany and volume declines in the United Kingdom and Benelux”. It gives no split between the two.

The same release says LKQ is withdrawing its full-year 2026 guidance.

According to Fortune’s transcript of the 30 July call, chief executive Justin Jude named “bad data” among the causes, and the need to retrain.

We think both of those causes, the data and the retraining, were set before the date. LKQ says its branches took the conversion training before go-live, and by July a couple dozen locations still had to be retrained.

The Sign-Off: “temporary” in April, guidance withdrawn in October

On its first-quarter call, according to Fortune’s transcript, LKQ described “a planned ERP migration in one of our key European markets”. It was completed “during the first week of April”, and later statements name Germany. LKQ added: “We anticipated temporary sales disruption associated with the conversion and appropriately reflected that in our full year guidance.”

That was the sign-off. The system was live, and the plan accepted the disruption as “temporary” and carried it in the guidance.

LKQ last updated that full-year guidance on 30 July. On 23 October it withdrew it.

Settle the data and the hours before the date

At least four weeks before your go-live, have the people who will run the system vouch in writing for the migrated data. Count the retraining hours before the date, and put them in the case with a name against each.

Done when: the people who will run the system have signed for the data. Every retraining hour in the case has an owner and a cost.

Ask your integrator one question

Of the cost of the first months after our go-live, what is in the case we signed?

For the people on your workstreams

The Capability Brief is written for the people who run each work package. This week it gives them a rule for when to stop one. It is on the record at capability.ai.

Our own Baseline report is here to read: the BusinessGPS Baseline report.

Sources

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