implementation plan will help the team understand the decisions that
are being made and, importantly, reduce the risk of failure.
Common barriers to success
There are three process barriers that are the real culprits for ERP
failure. These barriers cause an elongated development cycle with
poorly defined requirements and, as a result, poorly defined measures
of success. The implementation team often is tasked with chasing a
series of floating requirements, no optimizing process, and a false belief
that technology alone will provide a silver bullet. These teams are,
without fail, disappointed with the results.
Specifically, the three most common mistakes of ERP
implementations are the following:
The technology "silver bullet" approach
is one that is sometimes sold by vendors. However, there is no
evidence anywhere in the history of IT that software alone will solve a
business problem.
1. Focusing on technology.
Organizations
too often ignore the need to define an optimal process and then use the
technology as an enabler for the process. In too many instances,
organizations either try to adopt a process that is inherent in the ERP
solution, even if it does not fit their business requirements, or they try
to shoehorn their legacy processes into a software package that is not
designed to support their processes. In both cases, they sub-optimize
the capabilities in the technology and don't take advantage of the
opportunity to streamline their business process — the entire point of
technology implementations.
2. Ignoring the importance of requirements definition.
Pressed to deliver systems against pre-defined timelines that
don't take into account all of the necessary implementation steps,
organizations often rush the process, neglecting to build a solid
implementation plan and neglecting to establish solid agreement
across the organization as to what it will take to develop and implement
the solution prior to implementing the technology.
3. Jumping from the requirements definition to the development
phase.
ERP program remediation is required when an organization has a
significant investment in an ERP implementation that has not delivered
the anticipated ROI. In some cases, these programs are abandoned
entirely, costing organizations much more than dollars. Ancillary effects
include the erosion of corporate confidence in the IT function, as well as
an erosion in IT staff morale. An independent third party, skilled in
program management, can preempt these negative consequences by
providing a clear and honest evaluation of the current situation. This
third party, however, can not be a software vendor or a consulting
implementor, and must have no stake in the process other than
delivering business value.
Looking at the current cost and schedule overruns associated with
ERP implementations, as well as the number of implementations that
are abandoned mid-stream, it is obvious that the business world is
missing an enormous opportunity to harness technology as the
business evolves and a golden opportunity for IT to deliver business
value. Failure is not a given.