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Enterprisewide integrated systems (SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, etc.) may be the answer to the needs of many organizations. The process of achieving successful implementation, though, has often been painful. After recognizing the threats, accurately assessing the ramifications and developing ways to mitigate the risks associated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, auditors will be ready to begin implementation. The implementation of ERP should be performed with its unique characteristics in mind. The key areas for IT auditors to understand and monitor, where integration and implementation issues often pop up in these projects, are:
Corporate culture
Completing process changes
Enterprise communication
Management support
ERP project manager competence
The ERP team
Project methodology
Training
Institutional commitment to change
The Corporate Culture
The first factor involves understanding the corporate culture of the company in relation to its readiness and capability for change. There is a difference between seeing the necessity for change and being able to actually make the changes. An ERP system using SAP, Peoplesoft or Oracle is an enterprisewide implementation that will affect many, if not all, of the departments. Thus, understanding each department and its concerns is important. Many decentralized organizations may find that their divisions do not welcome change that affects their territory. Resistance to change is common. The implementation team will need to "unfreeze the organization" or prepare the organization for the change. By educating the users about the ERP system and involving user departments in the decision-making process, project teams can develop stronger acceptance of the system change.
Completing Process Changes
The second critical success factor requires the completion of all business process changes. These changes must occur prior to implementation. Thus, difficult decision making can be done early. Each company should perform some level of business process reevaluation or redesign prior to implementing ERP. With ERP comes cost, and changing the way a packaged system is configured after implementation is far more difficult than making the most informed decisions early. It is important to understand the structural and policy decisions that must be made.
In addition, auditors should reevaluate the controls in the newly designed processes. Emphasis should be placed on the new risks associated with the new objectives. Since the controls available in the new system will differ from the previous environment, auditors can perform proactive design phase review to address exposures inherent in the new system.
Enterprise Communication
The third factor deals with communication. It is important to communicate continuously with new users at all levels in business. Employees who are affected by the new system need to be informed of its progress so their expectations will be set accurately. People need to be notified many times about change. Communication is the key to managing expectations. When expectations are set too high, people tend to become frustrated, upset and disappointed with the results. When they are set too low, people may have difficulty adapting or be surprised with the extent of the change. Thus, to allow people time to accept and fully use the new system, a rigorous communication program should be adopted.
Auditors evaluating the system development phase of ERPs can ensure that the team is performing communication activities appropriately by reviewing minutes from meetings and workshops, interviewing users and watching for behavioral problems. Lack of communication will create tension and resistance to the system change. By helping employees see their work as part of the whole and how it fits into the final product, the team can help communicate that the success of the project depends on the efforts of all employees.
Management Support
Acquiring executive support for the project is essential from the beginning. Executive management must spearhead the effort to conform to the ERP structure. The champion of this effort must be someone who is respected and can provide an objective point of view. Executives need to provide active leadership and commitment during the implementation of their ERP system. Their efforts to personally engage in the change process will provide the support needed to gain success in this project. Many companies or divisions within an organization will be reluctant to change their business to fit the ERP framework. Some may become territorial and want to sabotage the project. Many executives find that this phase is the hardest part of implementation. Aligning their policies and processes with the ERP system, perhaps giving up operational control and territorial control of their areas, can be difficult. SAP and Peoplesoft are examples of centralized, top-down, structured approaches. Such an approach works well when organizations are able to operate within these limits. Executive management must encourage dedication and collaboration to the reengineering effort.
ERP requires full reengineering, not just automation to employee empowerment, from the start to ensure success for the business process improvement efforts.
ERP Project Manager Competence
Provided all the critical factors above are working, another relevant critical success factor deals with project management. The ERP project manager should be capable of negotiating on even terms with the technical, business and change management requirements. Integrated change blends the organizational and technical solutions into one large-scale change to avoid past systems development efforts where many concerns fell through the cracks. With an enterprisewide integrated information system, there is a need to address issues from all perspectives. Thus, the project manager and the project team must be sensitive to the impact of the new technology, new business processes, and changes in organizational structures, standards and procedures on the project as a whole. This will help keep the project manager from becoming overwhelmed by the potentially conflicting requirements of the implementation project.
The ERP Team
The ERP project team includes IT and business personnel. After defining project roles up front, team members should be reminded that they may be expected to shift to nontraditional roles. With ERP systems, many IT roles shift to the users. Customizing the ERP software to fit the requirements of a particular function becomes a user responsibility. Users configure the systems by using the tables and functions to run their business in the new way. The users modify tables and maintain systems. Thus, with many IT responsibilities shifting to the users, the project teams will be more effective when they are also composed of people from the business departments affected by the new system. Many companies are further strengthening their ERP project teams by adding outside consultants. These firms are able to provide project leadership support and ERP expertise that are not always readily available in-house.
Project Methodology
Another critical success factor relates to the project methodology. The selected project methodology should act as a road map to the project team. Objectives should be clear and measurable so progress can be reviewed at intervals. Setting measurement goals is a key aspect of reengineering, and it demonstrates the effectiveness of actual improvements. System integration projects are complicated and require close attention. All interfaces should be documented so any implication of change will be given the required attention. Whichever methodology is chosen, auditors must keep in mind that no single approach will work best at all times. The auditor must evaluate how a particular implementation approach was chosen and assess its appropriateness to the ERP project.
Training
It is also important to train users at all levels and provide support for all job changes. The ERP environment will change the roles of many employees. Current skills need to be reassessed and new skills need to be identified. The changing nature of the jobs means that management will need to provide support via new job definitions, rewards and recognition, and reevaluation of pay schedules. Education reflects a financial commitment to the effort and promotes problem-solving skills. Problem-solving skills empower employees to make effective changes.
It is also important to provide the project team members with the training to help them succeed in the project, such as training in technology, business and change management issues.
However, training is only the beginning with any ERP implementation. It is difficult to master all the modules because the system is complex. Experimentation is the only way to arrive at the best choice; it also locks in the learning.
Users of the system have hundreds of ways to access the same data. They will need to understand what will and will not happen with certain parameters. For example, SAP encourages the "sandbox" approach, so users can understand in elaborate detail exactly what the system is designed to do. Even the team members need to try multiple options before they choose the configuration that works best for them.
Commit to the Change
Problems will definitely arise, and the project team should expect them. The project scale and complexity of ERP systems ensure that problems will surface throughout the implementation effort. The project leader and team, however, must continue to persevere and remain committed to the information system change.
Thus, although the project team may run into resistance and problems, commitment to the change will help overcome the tides of reengineering. With management's persistence and consistency, the team will be able to overcome the pitfalls.
Concluding Thoughts
In today's client-server environment, corporate success with ERP requires diligent employees at all levels for all the critical success factors. There is little tolerance for mediocre performance. Controls breakdowns and/or financial losses to the organization often occur when these areas are not closely monitored and corrective action is not taken. The auditors and project teams that encourage the consideration of these critical factors will set a winning course for the implementation of the enterprise resource system.
The main encouraging factor is the alignment of an ERP implementation to the company's strategy and consequently getting full support from top management.
The main challenges are:
- Missing that the essence of the project is business process improvement
- Defining your requirements or at least the critical ones
- Selecting the most cost effective alternative from those which meet your requirements
- Defining the KPIs for the success of the implementation and tracking the defined KPIs
- Defining the ROI for the implementation and validate the achieved ROI
- Effectively managing the change vreated by the implementation
- Selecting the implementation project management and the implementation team members
- Scope creep. in other words, deviating from your stateted requirements and atttempting to use all what the ERP offers at the first start
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