Getting The Most--And Saving The Most--With Your New ERP Deployment

Anyone who’s taken part in an ERP implementation knows they are not simple creatures—roll-outs are typically far from flawless, and this can lead to greater expenditures than were planned for. Some companies are developing pricing models to ameliorate the trend of overspending and missed deadlines (see: Epicor), but this month the folks at Computer Weekly put together a tip sheet, and we’d like to share some of that information here.

The publication relied on feedback from a few global enterprises that had recently had successful ERP implementations, with the bulk of their article being about Xerox’s deployment of the latest version of SAP. There are also some interesting numbers provided by a recent Gartner survey of ERP implementation success: 5% of projects were cited as complete failures, about a third as simply “unsuccessful,” and 23% said their deployments were “highly successful.” Those companies in that last category shared some of the factors in their success, and the big three were intensive end-user training, accessible system support, and good change management.

Xerox rolled-out SAP’s latest version to some 70,000 staff members and partners, in 13 different languages, and across 16 countries, and their business system training manager, Sue Farrow, says making user-training a prerequisite was what made all the difference. With these parameters set, 80% of end-users had to complete system training before it went live, and they used 1,400 training simulations from only that updated version of SAP. This cut down on the number of surprises and problems after the ERP platform was officially implemented. Farrow also noted that in the past, the training budget was always the first cut—hopefully this recent success means fewer cutbacks in the future.

For those companies that have compromised training expenses, good system support is a must. Some of the surveyed companies stated that they’d set up user forums and clinics with positive results; others noted they’d set up troubleshooting departments to provide support for all branches. And for companies who’d experienced easy roll-outs and had no real complaints regarding support, the key was having good change management: continued and advanced training and support for each presentation.

Hopefully, Xerox’s success with concentrated end-user training will serve as a lesson to other companies looking to deploy new ERP models and upgrades. This is perhaps the most valuable tip of the three given, because it is a preemptive measure, and cost-wise, it can be planned for.

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