Prima Solutions Multi-channel Business Solutions for the Clothing, Footwear and Accessories Industry Overcoming the Challenges of Implementation Choosing a multi-channel ERP system can have a very positive effect on your company, bringing with it many benefits. Choosing the right ERP solution is a major contributory factor if you want the system to deliver as promised but so is implementation. Industry is littered with many companies who chose the right system but implemented it badly and haven t received the expected benefits. Implementing ERP successfully is hard work. There is hardly a department or process that isn t involved in the new software implementation however it is not an impossible task. It requires that you work hard indeed, but work hard on the right things. Distilling our 22 years of expertise, we have listed the key tips that will guarantee that you have an implementation that you will be proud of. This whitepaper offers advice on how to best avoid pain during an ERP implementation. These tips are the cumulative knowledge of ERP implementers here at Prima Solutions. Here are nine tips to ensure that your organisation has a successful ERP implementation: In This Issue Vendor Selection Change management Training Data cleansing/accuracy Team commitment/ Leadership Testing Adapting business processes Defining success and structure Implementation strategies
Tip 1 Vendor Selection For many, the idea of selecting, implementing and deploying an ERP system is daunting as the risks often seem to outweigh the benefits. When starting the implementation process, it is important to remain focused on your business objectives while keeping a few principles in mind. Do you have the right supplier? Do you have the right team? Do you have the right infrastructure? Is the entire business committed? Do you have the right selection criteria? Picking the right IT supplier is a huge step towards implementation success. During an ERP vendor evaluation, the first foremost criterion to consider is whether their ERP product will be the right fit for your industry and business model? The second and more difficult one is to assess if the vendor s culture fits in line with your corporate culture. Read it here This whole subject has been covered in our previous Whitepaper*. Entitled Key Criteria for Selecting a Multi-channel ERP, the whitepaper covers the key considerations you will need to make when choosing a multi-channel ERP system. To ensure you get the right solution for the needs of your business, it analyses the essential questions you need to ask yourself, your colleagues and also your suppliers. *Click on the image to read the whitepaper or find it at http://www.primasolutions.co.uk/blog/category/trending-topics/ Tip 2 Change management There is no doubt that ERP is quintessentially a technical project. But no matter how robust the solution, an ERP system will only be successful if staff embraces it completely at all levels of the organisation. Part of a successful ERP software implementation is to manage the change. This allows your people to transition as smoothly as possible from the way they currently undertake their daily tasks to the way they will under the new ERP system. As a matter of fact, various studies have shown that resistance to change is one of the top barriers to implementation. Change management is not easy as it involves changing people s attitude and in some cases the corporate culture. Of course people vary in their acceptance to change. Some accept it easily, most people will be reluctant at first and a few people are likely to fight it. Total acceptance will not occur without a real change management effort. Before beginning any ERP project, it s critical to ensure that the entire organisation understands the reasons and strategy behind the move. If project members and end users don t understand the objectives, confusion can prevail, reducing the chance of success. So it is up to you to define the need for change and ensure your staff understands how business process and software changes, especially the ones that affect them on their daily activities and will impact the company. You must justify why the changes are beneficial overall and how it will contribute to project objectives and not just how it will affect them. You need to engage all staff as early as possible and bring them along on the ERP journey. Communication and Education/Training are pursuant to effectively assist a proven change management process.
Tip 3 Training Training is frequently overlooked during the implementation, though it is a common knowledge that training is a key reason of implementation failure. We discussed above change management and how training and education can really help towards that effort to make a new system accepted by all. In order to accept the newly implemented system, users have to learn about the organisational change through ERP. In the course of their learning process, they have to be taught how the organisation will be affected by the new system. When choosing an ERP, be sure to consider the ease of use and the overall user experience. Searching for a solution that is highly intuitive, speeds the implementation process and reduce the amount of training required. But no matter how intuitive the system, training remains paramount. Users need to improve their skills in order to aid in implementation tasks and learn how to use the ERP system in the future. Make sure end users are brought up to speed on the new functionalities and benefits to them. This encourages them to be fully engaged in the transition, embracing rather than resisting change. As you plan the implementation phase, allow for adequate training of staff. ERP implementation generally divides into different several phases so different training is needed along those implementation phases. ERP implementation managers must develop and deliver training programs to meet this need. The training plan should specify; the training courses, their objectives, the resources required for each course, the number and type of users, trainers and a detailed schedule plan. We recommend that the training process be seen as a continuum, something that will not finish after the go-live of the ERP system. As not all the end-users are trained during the ERP implementation project, training will follow throughout the ERP lifecycle. Managers must define clearly which employees and skills they will need at the moment of the go-live, and after in order to achieve a successful ERP implementation project. Tip 4 Data cleansing/accuracy Data cleansing is one of the most critical success factors during an ERP implementation. If you import old, unclean or inaccurate data into your new system you will never get accurate information out. There are many who do not really trust the figures and data from their old system. So it is important you ask yourself the following questions: Have you ever inputted an entry for a price quote and forgotten to delete it? Do you have duplicate customer or supplier accounts? Do you have any blank description fields for products or generic items? Do you have old product codes that are no longer in use or too complicated to decipher? Confidence in your data is key to ensure you get the best from the new system, especially when it comes to reporting and business intelligence. Whilst cleaning your data, have a think of how you could come up with more intelligent product codes for instance. This ensures you start on your new ERP system with solid foundation that will help you streamline your operations.
Tip 5 Team commitment/leadership Having a committed (executive and non -executive) group is key to an ERP implementation process in order to get the necessary support, and to motivate project members and end users. The role of a sponsor and other leaders is to help remove barriers to success throughout the project You may face many challenges during the implementation so it is important that the ERP implementation project is viewed as high priority by all. Without day-one endorsement and guidance from all levels of leadership, your project can be over before it begins! A lack of clear sponsorship or leadership will negatively affect the decision-making process and prevent progress. Tip 6 Testing ERP systems are so flexible and complex at the same time so, a huge success factor for an ERP implementation is aggressive and extensive testing. Create workable ERP implementation goals and plans. Be smart and create a process that has stages and involves all who are concerned at each stage. Test the ERP at every stage. During training, end users are usually left with testing scenarios which act as checklists. It is important that end users go through all these scenarios. Only sign off when they can confirm the tests fit their business processes or make sure situations can be handled easily. Through the implementation, it is important to have highly motivated people around to support the testing effort. Schedule a time for your end users to go through testing. Some users may not have enough time to do it during working hours so it is important that you allocate a particular time for this without jeopardising their daily work (or come up with incentives for them to do it outside their working hours.) Tip 7 Adapting business processes One of the most challenging dilemmas you will encounter in your pursuit of a successful ERP implementation is, knowing when to change a business process to conform to your chosen ERP and when it is essential to customise ERP to preserve a strategic business process advantage. Take a close look at your business processes and determine the changes you may need to implement to fit into the EPR software functions. A high level of customisation can lead to complex code and costly software updates. They key is to customise only when it means giving your company a specific business advantage. If you choose the right IT partner with industry experience their ERP systems will have been developed and refined by observing and incorporating best business practices into the solution while taking into account your specific needs. In addition to all of the advantages ERP will bring to your business, your new ERP package will represent the norm for business practices plus you have the opportunity to actually correct some bad business habits. So, try to adopt the best practices and workflows of the ERP, rather than trying to change the ERP to accommodate your organisation s current workflows. If you try too much to mould the new ERP to your old processes, you will most probably lose the efficiencies built in to the solution.
Tip 8 Defining success and structure Without an articulated set of post go-live expectations, the success of an ERP implementation becomes a matter of opinion. Begin by carefully defining the scope of your project. Focus on specific business processes and system requirements. The more specific and upfront you can be, the more detailed your suppliers can be in their proposals. The entire company should have consensus on what constitutes success. Without a clearly developed and articulated project structure, the project team may duplicate efforts or leave key tasks unaddressed as they try to figure out where they should be and what they are specifically responsible for. Inevitably, this causes delays, raising costs. Hold a project kick-off meeting to set and align expectations, clarify roles and duties, reinforce roles and responsibilities. Regularly review the project as they may evolve over time. Also, set realistic expectations and think achievable! Simple success statement; success criteria that are time phrased: For instance an end of week 1 objective might be to have no more late orders than the average over the past twelve weeks and so on... Tip 9 Implementation strategies Which implementation strategy is best for my business? Big bang? Phased rollout? Parallel adoption? combination of big bang and phased rollout? When it comes to ERP implementations, these questions very often come to the surface. Big bang: Implementation happens in a single instance: All modules are installed across the company all at once and users move to the new system on a given date. Phased rollout: Change occurs in phases over an extended period of time. Users move onto new system in a series of steps. It can be rolled out by module, by business unit or even by geography for companies with multiple locations. Parallel adoption: Both the legacy and new ERP system run at the same time. Users learn the new system while working on the old. While one strategy may work for a majority of companies, it may not be the best strategy for your company. Every company has unique goals which dictate the implementation strategy choice. In some cases, a phased deployment might be more appropriate than a parallel deployment. In other cases, it might be the opposite. There certainly is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to implementing an ERP system. Conclusion ERP systems bring many benefits to the organisations that select the right system and follow a proven methodology with their chosen vendor. Your IT supplier should have many years experience of working with similar organisations to bring the benefits to your implementation. We have talked a lot about how difficult the implementation is, however if you get it right you will find that the benefits outweigh the pains many times over. Your implementation should be a joint partnership with your chosen vendor so you are sharing the pains, communicating well and understand each other s expectations and roles.
Prima Solutions Multi-channel Business Solutions for the Clothing, Footwear and Accessories Industry Contact us If you have any questions, or would like to receive more information, please contact us. Prima Solutions Ltd, Loughborough Technology Park Oakwood Drive, Ashby Road, Loughborough, Leics LE11 3NG Tel: +44 (0)1509 232200 Email: sales@primasolutions.co.uk Website: www.primasolutions.co.uk Blog: www.primasolutions.co.uk/blog Find us on @primasolutions