Start networking and exchanging professional insights

Register now or log in to join your professional community.

Follow

What is the role of IT Manager in the implementation of an ERP Project other then hardware and software availability support?

user-image
Question added by Gangadharan Nair , IT Manager , Premierfoods
Date Posted: 2013/06/11
Mohammad Tohamy Hussein Hussein
by Mohammad Tohamy Hussein Hussein , Chief Executive Officer & ERP Architect , Egyptian Software Group

An IT manager should do the following (other than hardware and software availability):

- Ensure that the ERP implementation project is within the company's overall strategy.

- Be an active member of the ERP implementation project.

- Ensure that the ERP vendor's technology structure  is aligned to the company's IT strategy.

- Particiapte in defineing and monitoring ERP implementation performance indicators.

- Ensure that his/her team are trained to support the ERP

mohammad Hussein
by mohammad Hussein , Oracle Finance Consultant , Tahaluf Al Emarat

i believe it is not fair to say that the IT manager responsibility is to provide hardware and software support, that might be an IT admin responsibilities but definitely not an IT manager.
IT manager role in the implementation of an ERP system has a lot of project management tasks which starts from day one of the project implementation (project scoping) as a member of the ERP project management committee, he should participate in the decision making to identify the project scope and if the scope is too big to be implemented at one phase or should be broken down to multiple phases.
in the detailed analysis and requirements gathering phase, the IT manager should attend all the meetings to make sure of the information integrity provided to the implementer from all of the concerned departments.
in the documentation phase, the IT manager should (as one of the ERP project management committee) review the system documentation and write down any amendments to be applied to the documentation.
in the going live phases (installation, training and opening balances) the IT manager could act as the contact person and coordinator between the ERP implementers and the company concerned departments.
at the end and after the project acceptance it is always recommended to have a single point of communication between the ERP consultants and the system users for any support cases, this person could be the IT manager also.
this is the sum of my knowledge and understanding for the IT manager part i the ERP projects implementation, there could be some areas not mentioned in the above sections but to be honest it is a huge question to be answered here.
finally, other factors should be taken into consideration, like the company size and what is the actual IT manager "role" in that company, because sometimes you can find a company with one IT person with the position "IT manager" but he is only concerned with the technical and hardware stuff, while sometimes a company could have an IT team with an IT manager that acts more like a project manager, sometimes you feel like the IT manager position and responsibilities is understood in a different way from company to another or from management to another.

More Questions Like This

Do you need help in adding the right keywords to your CV? Let our CV writing experts help you.