ERP Change Management

Change management is key to a successful ERP implementation

Never underestimate human beings’ natural aversion to change, even when the results of the change may benefit them. The number-one reason ERP projects fail is user resistance to adapting to the required changes. One study shows that 63% of all companies experience difficulties in addressing human and organizational change issues when implementing a new ERP solution. We work with change management every day as a crucial component of a successful international ERP implementation. Here are some of our change management best practices.

Want to drive a successful ERP implementation? Focus on change management

When an international company decides that global processes need to be implemented together with a new ERP solution, leadership believes that process harmonization will bring benefits such as increased administrative efficiency, improved customer service and better reporting. However, users of the system, both at headquarters and local subsidiaries, may view the change as purely disruptive, without understanding the business benefits, and may resist adopting new processes. And this can sabotage the whole project unless the change is managed wisely.

ERP Diagnostic assesment

Upon our decades of experience developing change management tools and techniques, we have also developed an ERP Diagnostic Workshop.

It’s an easy-to-execute workshop built around a simple questionnaire that helps you confirm the scope, budget and timeline of your international Dynamics implementation. The outcome of this workshop is an essential tool, not only for keeping your project organized and on track but also for driving your change management. Find out more about the ERP Diagnostic Workshop here.

ERP Diagnostic Workshop

The three principles of change management for ERP projects

Whether you lack buy-in for change or people are actively resisting it, you want to do everything you can to make sure your entire organization focuses on the optimized future scenario. In other words, take your business case for the new ERP solution to the people – communicate it clearly and repeatedly to everyone who will be using the new system and processes. Follow these three principles of change management to help your messages land. Read Pipol’s complete whitepaper on change management here.

Make sure your assumptions around the benefits of the desired change are correct

A number of challenges need to be overcome before an organization can reap the potential benefits of process harmonization. One type of challenge relates, not to the implementation of processes, but to the quality of the processes themselves. That’s why a pre-requisite to any successful ERP implementation is to get an understanding of your organization’s global processes.

Change management tools and best practices

We use Business Process Blueprinting as a critical component for any ERP implementation project. It helps us work with customers to identify improvement areas and design future processes that will both improve their business and drive the new system development.

One of the key tools of Business Process Blueprinting is the Future Backwards technique. This technique looks at a series of events starting from the desired result. For example, if a domestic company wanted to sell their product in a foreign country, we would plan backward from the first delivery of their products in the foreign country, how to establish distribution, how much to increase capacity, etc. In this way, you avoid automatic assumptions and make sure the current way of doing things is actually a best practice before imposing it on the entire organization and potentially meeting resistance.

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