WHY DO MANY ERP IMPLEMENTATIONS FAIL?

[Micheal Alexander]

Let me share with you some of my practical experiences from my past dealings in taking over implementations that are in the “RISK” category. Risk defined as a project management term means any unexpected event that can affect a project whether good or bad. There are hundreds of reasons an ERP Implementation can fail. In this article, I will high level this for you. Epicor consulting companies

Poor Execution of Business Process Review

First lets define Business Process Review known as BPR. BPR is the process of discovering an organizations current business processes in order to have a clear understanding of which modules and how to configure them in the new ERP in order to conduct business without disruption. There are many visual tools that support this process, how the tools are used and the consultant that facilitates the BPR’s make a difference to the output of results.

Some examples of poor execution of BPR is as follows.

Usually a BPR questionnaire is sent to the customer which allows the ERP software consultants to review prior to conducting the BPR sessions. I’ve witnessed customers fill out the questionnaire very poorly without putting all the possible business data/scenarios that consultants need to consider. The questionnaire provides direction on questions the ERP Software consultant will ask during the BPR sessions. Epicor implementation consultant

I have also seen CIO or IT Managers fill out the questionnaires in silo – This is a big red flag in the beginning of the project as questionnaires are to be completed by either departmental stakeholders or department leaders

During the BPR sessions – I’ve noticed consultants let the module in the new ERP system determine the questions to ask the project team. Another red flag, as the consultants do not have a contrast in processes. A lot of times, I’ve seen customers not ask questions during BPR as they perceived the BPR to be all new ERP focus instead discussing their current processes. I’ve even had customers ask after BPR sessions are completed “when will I be able to discuss my current departments processes? Big fail

Output of BPR – I’ve seen consultants have canned outputs as BPR deliverables. Deliverables are in the form of a powerpoint, visio process maps, excel to name a few. The quality of these deliverables are important as customer resources to make decisions on processes that may need to be changed. I’ve seen poor process mapping analysis which leads to not fully understanding software requirements/functionalities to accommodate business requirements.