Erp's

It is widely known and almost expected within many corporations, industries, and consulting firms that attempts to implement new information technologies, such as ERP’s, often result in failure at some point down their travelled paths. In my own experience it seems that many companies have no issue with spending the massive sums of money required to purchase the license and to hire the collaborative consulting team that will facilitate the integration of the new technology. Where companies typically fall short in their delivery is in seeing the implementation through to the point where the system is delivering on the specified performance levels. The article touches on this issue and has given it the title, the Phase 2 problem.

It’s no surprise that company leaders would find the potential advantages of an ERP system very appealing. However, it is very surprising that companies are willing to spend anywhere between $30 million to $100 million and several years to implement such a system and then only to result in failure because of the Phase 2 problem. Obviously this is a terrible waste of resources that could have been committed elsewhere. One would like to give company leadership the benefit of the doubt by thinking that their management is committed to making such a change happen successfully, that they have a complete understanding of the significance of such an undertaking, will involve the key stakeholders in the process, and have a comprehensive plan that will provide the road map from beginning to end. It is for these very reasons that the article suggests ERP as well as other information technology initiatives fail.

The article touches on the need to manage the change effectively. This is a very broad statement and encompasses a lot of possibly activities by management. One subject I would expand upon is to have a true understanding of the organizational culture. Many executives and other members of management are all too often so far out of touch...