How can organizations speed up the roll-out time of an ERP

Greetings Caty. Accelerating ERP/COTS implementations have been an elusive goal of vendors, implementation partners, and customers. For five years I worked for the #2 business software maker focusing on accelerating implementations. During those five years I chased the dream and learned many lessons along the way. Following are some of the key lessons I would like to share with you.

http://gbeaubouef.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/rapid-erp/

and

http://gbeaubouef.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/decisions-move-erp/

and

http://gbeaubouef.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/defining-erp-product-scope/

Enjoy!
Brett

Having been on both sides of ERP implementations (as a customer and as a vendor), from my perspective the top 5 ways to successfully deploy an ERP solution in a efficient and effective way are listed below.

1) Complete a solid due diligence on the company that will be partnering with your team on the implementation. Some basic questions to ask include:

* How many ERP implementation have you performed for this particular ERP solution?
* Can you provide a set of three to five solid references of customers that you have implemented this ERP solution? - I would then suggest to throw those away and ask for three more so you can test the depth/strength of their references.
* Ask the references about the implementation methodology; were they consultative and flexible or rigid?
* Was the data migration from the old system to the new system smooth and relatively painless?
* How good was the training?
* How responsive were they?
* How long was the time from the "kick-off" meeting to "go-live"?
* Did implementation support include first month end close?

2) Make sure the CEO & Executive Team makes this a top priority:
* Proper resources assigned to manage tasks and project. All too often employees are hunkered down trying to do their "normal" jobs, which limits their ability to spend enough time focused on the ERP implementation
* Employees held accountable for project success. Vendors references should supply the answer regarding vendors reputation with regards to accountability; were they business partners or "just vendors".
* Exec level reviews every few weeks to show commitment, support and provide guidance

3) Make sure the responsibilities of both Company and ERP implementation vendor are clear and defined, including a lead person for each task and an expected date of completion for the task

4) Involvement with key members of each function impacted. This is important in order to:
* Obtain buy-in from all functions
* All key processes are understood and agreed upon in order to eliminate start-stop-revise-start implementation steps

5) Regular communication between company and outside implementation team to make sure milestone dates will be met, discussion regarding any potential or known bottlenecks/roadblocks, and to reaffirm commitment and expectations.

To Steve's point, which always has a negative slant with regards to ERPs, there is some truth in his statement. That is why, in my response, I used the words "to successfully deploy an ERP solution in a efficient and effective way" as opposed to "speed-up the roll-out" in my answer to the question.

Depending on the size and the complexity of the company, Expandable's implementation typically take 6-8 weeks. While we have done one in 2 weeks and some in four weeks, those are not the norm nor would I typically recommend such a short time frame.

ERP solutions are complex. In addition to understanding the business' work flows, proper system settings and data migration there is also training to complete. At Expandable, for instance, we prefer to migrate the data early on, so that we can train the employees on their own data, in order that the training material has a high degree of relevancy. We then re-import the data one last time just prior to "go-live".

Trying to shorten the implementation cycle will probably result in a less than optimum implementation/training which will most likely cause more work on the back-end and some frustration after the go-live.

SaaS ERP implementations are often faster than on-premise deployments but, even with a SaaS ERP option, you should plan on having around a 3-month implementation time frame.
- In addition to the pointers listed above by Bob, its important that you have a capable dedicated internal project manager to help manage the implementation.
- To get a quick win and build off of those learnings, its also often a good idea to implement one element of the system, such as financials, before expanding to other parts of the business.

Rob

Great answer from Jonathan. He's absolutely right to say that implementing ERP is a business transformation process and should be understood as such. ERP should be understood as process improvement rather than features. From that perspective, you need sufficient time to allow the organization time to adapt and get it right.

That said, late and over-budget implementations are not acceptable and are usually the result of unclear goals and expectations from the start. In addition, packaged solutions (and services) and SaaS products can help reduce implementation time.

To build on Jonathan's excellent point about due diligence, I believe there actually is a key to improving the success rate and speed of ERP implementations. That key is expert business analysis and solution architecture.

As a practice, particularly in enterprise environments, business analysis is relatively immature. Adding insult to injury, it also tends to lack tight integration with solution architecture and project management functions. I see this lack of integration as the Achilles heel of ERP, ECM, BI, KM, and CRM initiatives alike. Many cycles in deployment efforts are spent trying to overcome this deficit.

In the last decade or so, Joint Application Design (or JAD) has been fading in favor of more "agile" management techniques. I believe the principles of JAD (where the business leaders, BAs, Architects, users, and developers are all represented) are still sorely needed and can help to turn these problems around.

Duplicate post removed...

Easy, leave the version you have in place alone. 9 Women can't have a baby in one month. "...companies are getting increasingly fed up with the time it takes to implement a solution" because complex things that require months to gestate are not able to be made faster, more agile or innovative.