But why is this management so important? Let's take a few examples to answer this question.
Organizational change management is essential to translate new business processes and system functions into "concrete" transformations.
While most ERPs have enough functionality to bring potential improvements to your business, these changes will not materialize on their own. It is not enough to get the ERP up and running to avoid confusion, hardware workarounds, and a return to old business processes. On the other hand, an effective change plan will identify the specific changes that affect each of the working groups.
For example, each employee may have well-established work habits, including the use of spreadsheets, manual processes, and methods. An effective strategy will explain why these processes will disappear and indicate exactly how they will now be replaced in the "new" model.
Only through this personalized and detailed approach will employees understand and execute what is expected of them in the new system environment.
As employees are generally overwhelmed by the volume of changes that accompany ERP implementations, it is important to develop a targeted communication strategy.
Just as every change must be clearly defined for employees, the information communicated to each work group and each employee must be tailored to their specific needs. Employees should be informed of the nature, circumstances, reasons and modalities of the changes that affect each group.
In addition, these messages must be communicated through the most effective channels. For example, executives may be more likely to react to shorter lists of key points, while salespeople will prefer face-to-face meetings and workers to advertise on bulletin boards.
It should also be remembered that changes resulting from your ERP implementation will need to be communicated at least seven times to each of the employees involved so that the message is heard.
Any training is useless if it is not adapted to your particular organization.
The training must be specifically designed for your industry and business processes. However, the standard training documentation for most ERP vendors describes generic business processes that do not apply to your industry or unique configurations of your software.
In this context, it is extremely important to dedicate the time and resources needed to adapt the materials and courses. Otherwise, it is unlikely that employees will understand or retain the new business processes they are supposed to apply.
Only implement your new ERP system when your business is ready.
Many executives assume that their employees will be ready because they have asked them to be. But it's not so simple. More effective project teams, on the other hand, find ways to evaluate and correct organizational preparation issues.
For example, employees who have requested more information from management generally respond better to the messages. It is easy to identify areas of resistance through surveys and focus groups, and incorporate them into a personalized change management plan.
Organizational change management does not stop with implementation.
Most companies are delighted to have finally reached the end of their implementation and therefore have no desire at this stage to continue the tasks related to the project. However, the only way to realize and optimize the expected business benefits is to measure results after commissioning, to identify causes of non-compliant benefits and to take corrective actions to accelerate the benefits. It is often enough to organize a catch-up training for some employees or to redefine an interrupted business process.
The efforts, time and cost associated with managing organizational change may be just a drop in the ocean of global implementation, but too many companies neglect this important factor of success. Experience shows that the best performing deployments do. Do not forget it if you migrate to a new ERP.
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