Your new ERP, Is It READY for Deployment to your business?

This article is a continuation of our ERP Pyramid series where we explore the building blocks critical to a successful implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. In Chapter 8 we focus on how to prepare the business for the ERP deployment.

Block 8 (Business Readiness) of the ERP Pyramid is the preparation of all business stakeholders for the Go-Live of the ERP. This is one half of the Deployment Phase at Level 3.

Business stakeholders must all be ready for all changes to their work world. Expectantly, Organizational Change Management (OCM) plans and activities have already taken place. This is one of the last OCM activities for the ERP Go-Live. Whether they are line staff, supervisors, unionized, salaried, hourly, contract, support staff or even third parties all these groups must be aware of the upcoming changes and how they will be affected. Though the changes may be mostly technology focused, they will likely be accompanied with new data, policies, processes and work procedures. The release of this ERP also requires sustaining business support to drive adoption of the ERP.

How will you prepare your business stakeholders for the new ERP?

Make a Plan

More than just a training or communication plan, a change management plan needs to include
the activities and measurements to ensure that people know what will be expected of them in the new world— post go-live.
 

This plan needs to be aligned with:

• Various needs of leaders and stakeholders including bridging the gap between their old and new world
• Deployment or release schedules of the ERP
• Corporate communications
• Other competing initiatives that may possibly overload or distract stakeholders

Align Leadership

Leaders in the business are the key to driving home the adoption of the ERP. The business looks to organization, functional and subject matter expert leadership to lead the way for staff in understanding and being compliant with the new ERP. Leaders will need to help staff recognize any changes in policies and expectations of staff to take training for the ERP. Leaders themselves should be familiar with the ERP functionality to provide support to staff when questions or issues arise. During the adoption phase, leaders must seek compliance from staff. They will later collect and triage any production issues or improvement suggestions.

Engage Stakeholders

The actual breadth and depth of changes of the ERP will be better understood when the development phase (i.e. Business Functions, Technology & Data Integrations, and Systems Unification) of the ERP are complete.

The impact of the changes will vary by groups or segments of people.These segments can be defined by job type, region, business group or other demographics. Some segments will be impacted more than others when the ERP is rolled out. It is therefore important that effective tactics be implemented. Tools to be considered include knowledge bases, documentation, training, and peer support groups.

Deliver Effective Training

ERP training needs to include “delta” training between the old world and new world. It also needs to be part of new hire training. Training can include:

• Procedural manuals
• In-class training
• Videos
• Web-based training
• Formal mentoring or job shadowing
• Informal learning (peer-to-peer)

Training should also be tied to roles and positions in the organizations. Levels of proficiency can later be used to gauge expertise of staff to mentor or lead others.

Build Sustainment Support

As the ERP goes live, questions will arise that are business related. Questions such as:

Why do we need to do this?"

Whom do I speak to about improvements?" 

How do we know the process is working?"

should be directed to business leaders or governance bodies.

The formation of peer support groups will drive performance and compliance during the adoption phase.

Reporting functions will use tools such as scorecards to measure process results.  These groups will later be part of the continuous improvement process for future changes.

Communicate the Go-Live

It is expected that there has been on going communications about the imminent ERP release. In the final stretch to Go-Live this message needs to come from several sources (including Executive Leadership) and targeted and coordinated with the technical deployment. 

In Chapter 9, we next look at Technology Readiness for the ERP.

Allen Miko is a Senior Partner at Chrysylys