Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning: Lessons Learned From The Front

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•Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning: Lessons Learned From The Front

SAP has implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in both the commercial and public sector for more than 30 years. From these experiences, four important principles stand out, as follows:

• Successful implementations start and end with the involvement and contribution of senior executive leadership, providing the governance and management necessary to achieve organizational buy-in throughout the process and ensure that goals are achieved.
  
  
• Success also requires confidence that implementing ERP software achieves true value for the organization - value measured in substantial process improvement.
  
  
• Implementation has a life cycle, with some of the most important phases at the start - requirements gathering, business case development, and solution design. The business case quantifies the desired process improvements and provides the organization with the goals necessary to carry it through the rough times.
  
  
• Implementation programs with the set goal of "replacing systems" - without mentioning process improvement - are doomed to failure.

Best practice indicates that a successful implementation can, in fact, force an organization to reevaluate its business practices and processes, focus on clearly defined goals and objectives, create a higher understanding of the need for data accuracy, emphasize time-phased material planning, and enable a more effective data-sharing environment. However, such high-level benefits require a new approach to project implementation, one that applies the lessons of the past to reinvent the systems of the future.

The following point of view draws lessons about what has been done well, what has yet to be done well, best practices from large commercial company implementations, and best practices for the governance of implementations that achieve the results and benefits foreseen.

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•Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning: Lessons Learned From The Front