ERP Systems

ERP Software Systems Implementation: Are you ready?

Does your company culture welcome change?

Your company has identified a need to make a major change to new ERP software system.  Committees have done their research.  SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and all the major players, have done their dog and pony shows and worked to convince you as to why their product is the best fit for your company’s needs. The techies have tested all the contenders.  Budgets have been weighed, numbers have been crunched, deals cut and agreements signed.  Regardless of which of the ERP software systems has won your corporate heart, implementation now rests firmly on the horizon.

Implementation has an actual timetable.  Are you ready?  Switching ERP software systems is changing out the technological foundation upon which your business is constructed.   Like a house that’s getting a new foundation, there are many ways to make the change but you can’t move out while the replacement is being made.

Implementation is a process that must be carefully planned and considered.   Ideally, implementation planning was part and parcel of your ERP software systems consideration process and in the best of all worlds, it was. Comprehensive anticipatory thinking was the bedrock upon which your company was built and… they lived happily ever after…

But then, there’s reality.  Business life goes on sales get made services are provided profits counted and so on.  Planning for some future change in infrastructure is not always the case.  Your company’s information infrastructure is its bread and butter and you have to be realistic about it.

Keep the lines of communication wide open. The three C’s: compartmentalization, competition and conflict are counter-productive to an implementation when they figure too prominently in a company culture.  Implementation is a team effort that affects everyone from C-level to rank and file. Everyone has a stake in the outcome.   Supportive interaction between departments, divisions, branches and locations can make all the difference, in fact, it is essential.

Sales people, engineers, executives, manufacturing workers, as well as IT professionals…all of these can be valuable contributors and making them a part of the solution will help to minimize the problems that inevitably accompany a major implementation.  Inclusion can turn the tide and the resistant can become the change.

Implementation is much more that simply a technical process.  It is cultural.  Your product may very well be on the cutting edge of industry technology but if the company mindset is not, it can make for a very difficult transition.

Written by :

Amy Cruz