Why ERP Implementation Fails

How Enterprise process planning helps in ERP Implementation

ERP implementations have 3 critical fail points that are cured by Enterprise Process Planning (EPP):

• ERP implementations turn off track from the point that the customer business is not systemically understood. Catering for this failure makes the implementation process unnecessarily complicated
• Pre and post-sale customer interviews fail to elicit the necessary understanding of the business. The traditional BPR style of questioning lacks the context that enables users to provide accurate answers
• Lack of customer industry knowledge means ERP implementers cannot validate what they are told

How MBG can help?

Assist the customer to understand what they do At face value, it sounds patronizing to suggest that customers do not know what they do. Of course managers and staff understand what they do as individuals. The issue is that staff rarely know how they fit in the value-chain and each level of management has a poor understanding of what happens under them.

Assist the customer to be able to articulate what they really need The way a customer expresses what they perceive to be their requirements can be flawed. The way they describe their perception of a solution to a need can cause problems if taken literally, and a good consultant will interpret the solution based on past experience of other customers’ needs. All customer communication comes in a context with which the consultant really needs to be familiar. Assist the vendor to capture what the customer really does, and what they require The lack of standards for the way business people describe a business and what they do means that when they communicate with IT people their words may not convey the picture they are seeing. Staff in different parts of the company may use different words to describe the same thing. Consequently consultants do not gain an accurate picture of what happens in the company or what users require. Assist the customer with Implementation ERP Implementation requires a dedicated resource for following tasks – Define scope of Implementation and End Objectives –Select ERP system based on the Blue print, Create a project plan, Define phases of implementation, make urgent and achievable schedule, make a communication plan, Arrange mid-way approvals, plan your testing, Migrate business data, plan go live, plan support and maintenance.