Question 3
Imagine that in the ERP implementation you are involved with, uses are reluctant to get involved with phase 2. What issues, problems and risks, both short and long term, does this present?
Phase 2 is where ideas and theories are transformed into practice and results, this is where the planning of how the package is going to work for the company take place. This phase is usually where the most obstacles arise. One obstacle in particular that is generally prominent in most implementations of new ERP systems, is relucant users. User acceptance and resistance may always be an issue, however this is more prevalent when the company is installing an ERP system for the first time.
This may seem like a small issue to those outside the business world, but in spite of their benefits many ERP systems fail because of users resistance. Reluctant users can bring all sorts of issues to an organisation’s ERP implementation;
- Negative attitude, can bring an implementation down, this attitude that users have will rub off on customers, fellow collegues, not good for morale at all.
- Users may believe that they are given unrealistic expectations to complete their normal duties aswell as assist in user testing and implementation. If users are overloaded with work they are not inclined to be very keen to participate in the implementation.
- Unaccepting users are also are not likely to pay attention in training sessions as for one reason or another they are against the new ERP implementaion. If these users are not aware of proper procedures, they are not preforming transactions correctly and accurately, this could cause all sorts of problems for management and analysis teams. As if financials prove to be incorrectly costed or allocated this could have short and long term damaging effects on the business.
The most major long term effect from relucant users was if the ERP was to fail because of this unaccepting attitude, this would cost the company thousands of dollars, resources and most likely customers. This is a big price to pay for not having workers accepting new business procedures.
It is inevitable that things won’t change without some uneasiness, this is why many company’s spend the time and money, training and testing their new systems with their employees, to encourage them to believe that the system will be working for them, to help streamline their processes and re-engineering outdated procedures, so overall the company will remain competitive and proporous organisation.
References
Lozinsky, S. 1988, Enterprise-wide software solutions: integration strategies and practices, Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusetts.
