How to avoid short-circuiting your business when implementing ERP

Almost all projects experience major delays in business readiness during Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation. Delays cost money, undermine business cases and, ultimately, could destroy shareholder value. How can we make it better?

Recently, the speed of implementing ERP and CRM has rapidly increased. CRM can be customised and ready to go live within three to four months, and ERP within 12-18 months. Less than half the time compared to even a few years ago. This is the beauty of Microsoft Dynamics 365.

However, this speed of implementation creates enormous pressure on the ground. Non-IT delivery needs to support an increased workload within a compressed time frame. Often, they are required to do so without being dedicated, qualified or trained in any way and are expected to do it “on the side” or “with a bit of overtime”.

We see this particularly with clients implementing change completely by themselves, using a single contractor to do it, or simply trying to manage an ERP or CRM implementation with IT only. Without dedicating business resources or leading from the business side, delays and frustration are inevitable.

Businesses scramble to provide resources once the system is ready for production and they are overwhelmed by the workload. First, the go-live date wobbles, and falls, then the added costs start ramping up. The value of the system is generated later and later.

The business case is hidden in a drawer. A blame game starts.

There is an easy way to prevent this:

• Honestly assess the workload required for a transformation at a project’s inception.
• Provide an integrated plan on how to deliver alongside the IT effort.
• Accept the new normal: the business WILL be the bottleneck.

Close key bottlenecks with qualified resources from the start. Your business change and transformation related resources should be the first on the ground and the last to leave it. Plus, most importantly, they should understand the challenges and needs of cloud-driven IT transformation.

Hitachi Solutions can help you implement an efficient ERP solution

Hitachi Solutions has a holistic transformation methodology and, with its specialists, provides help to analyse and identify bottlenecks, estimate workloads and advise on how to efficiently manage your business workforce and engagement alongside a CRM/ERP delivery.

We make sure you deliver on time and in full, so you reap the business benefits of your IT implementation and have your staff ready to use and adopt the new solution from day one.

Watch how we take the pain out of transformation and adoption and find out more about how we can help you.