Addressing Key Business Risks in ERP Implementations Through Onboarding and Adoption
Addressing Key Business Risks in ERP Implementations Through Onboarding and Adoption
Throughout several ERP-enabled transformation programs that I was engaged at; I have seen numerous support tickets were created post go-live with the theme of “how do I….?”.
These are not support issues; they are system onboarding and adoption issues. Identifying and addressing onboarding and adoption issues at the source and at an early stage within the ERP implementation, will not only reduce the number of support tickets being raised, but also can drastically reduce user adoption issues, all while maintaining a reasonable pace for innovation and mitigating ERP system adoption risks.
Mitigating change management and adoption risks of system implementation is no longer a “nice to have” component within ERP implementation programs. It is rather becoming more and more fundamental and a key success factor for modern ERP implementations and their value realisations on the long run.
As organisations deploy more ERP software, they struggle to train and equip end-users. ERP solutions purchases alone cannot make employees productive, however effective onboarding and adoption can. If ERP applications are not leveraged properly then the customer investment in a new ERP solution will go in vain.
Effective ERP program sponsors have started to realise this and have been actively engaged with their stakeholders at various levels to ensure;
· understanding and implementing of Onboarding and Adoption Best Practices at their programs,
· learning is aligned to organisational success criteria, while accelerating user adoption, innovating at scale, and driving a better user experience overall.
At the same time, a few leading ERP software companies have embedded onboarding and adoption assets and resources as part of their Customer Success Management Strategies. That has become important for those companies to be able to accelerate technology adoption and innovation, and help their customers see a return on their investment while fully utilising the new ERP software. With its wide-ranging set of available assets, services, methods and tools, SAP is an excellent exemplar of those pioneering ERP vendors who are committed to customer success.
In this article, I have outlined my point of view on key elements about onboarding and adoption best practices in the context of ERP solutions, their definitions and why they are important, choosing the right onboarding model, and key considerations to drive successful onboarding and adoption.
The Process of Onboarding and Why It’s Important
Onboarding is the process of having the customer acquainted with a new ERP system, technology products, applications, and solution’s features to help the customers accelerate its transformation and start achieving measurable value from their ERP investment as soon as possible.
The complexity of the onboarding requirements varies considerably based on the complexity of the applications, system, capabilities, modules, availability of resources and solutions being implemented.
The onboarding process is important as it:
· Helps customer organisations realise the value of their ERP investments.
· Helps optimise business processes, enhances employee performance, enhances user experience, and improves ROI.
· Enables the program leadership to be able to forecast, calculate and measure value to an ample level of accuracy to secure the necessary ongoing approvals for the initiative,
· Provides program leadership with informed input to establish timeframes and determine how soon can the ERP program reap its projected benefits and realise the expected values,
· Enables Customer Success Partner from the technology vendor - a critical role in enabling a successful onboarding - to familiarise themselves with business finance concepts and be able to answer questions about the quantifiable benefits of the ERP solution being rolled out.
Choosing the Right Onboarding Model
The “one size fits all” approach doesn’t work when it comes to selecting an effective Onboarding model for an ERP solution. The “right” onboarding model must be carefully tailored to suit the customer’s needs, program circumstances and level of the complexity of the ERP solution being implemented.
A set of goals and expectations of the onboarding model needs to be clearly articulated and communicated to the organisation by the program leadership and the technology partners at the outset of the solution implementation. There are two types of Onboarding models:
1. Basic onboarding model
In this model, all customers get the same set of services and the process followed along with any resources utilised or assets provided are not customised to the specific customer needs. Those onboarding models:
· Are easier to deploy with minimal effort and low risk,
· The customer mainly manages the communication of change to the wider organisation.
· Example – rolling out an onboarding welcome pack to a new ERP system user group within a specific functional area e.g. Finance - Account Payable (AP) .
2. Custom-built onboarding model
In this model, the customer receives a tailored set of services, customised processes to meet their specific requirements and individual circumstances. Those onboarding models:
· Require more time to execute, can be expensive and carries risks with them
· Entail engaging in detailed customer-facing discussions and workshops to determine requirements, which will result in a tailored program of work, that enables the executing the onboarding and adoption strategy of the solution being implemented.
· Communication of change to the wider organisation is a joint responsibility, with both the ERP vendor (technology partner) and the system Integrator companies assisting the customer organisation to determine its end-user communication, system and user adoption methods, software releases and learning requirements.
· Example – rolling out a full ERP system suite with multiple applications and modules across the organisation for a first time.
In essence, there is no right or wrong answer to deliver onboarding services for ERP solutions as it depends on the specific requirements of the customer organisation, its own business model, culture, industry, and nature of operations. However, for any onboarding model to be successful, Customer Success Partners from both the technology vendor and the customer organisation, need to be very cognizant of these key sources of information:
1. The customer organisation
Who are they? What do they do? What industry they are aligned to? Who are their customers? What their initiatives? Is their organisational structure available and up-to-date? What business outcomes are wanting to achieve by implementing the ERP solution? What is the customer roadmap for their digital transformation? Who are the key stakeholders and what user groups are there?
2. The ERP solution being implemented
What ERP applications, products, capabilities, modules have they acquired? What are the core features of these modules? What infrastructure (Cloud or on-premise) have they considered? How complex the architecture landscape is? What does the future architecture look like? Does the ERP vendor provide a clear roadmap for innovations? What is the future customer and user experience will look like? What level of integration is required? What is the direction in relation to technology platform? What level of process of automation are looking to achieve? What ID management and security requirements will they need? What data volumes look like? What is the level of data quality have they been maintaining? What additional services such as customisation, installation, configuration, data migration, testing, maintenance and support they are going to need, as part of the implementation?
3. The adoption requirements
What the end-users need to do to securely access and use the software solution? What tasks need to be carried out to prepare it for users? Which users will be impacted by the implementation? What’s the organisational readiness for the ERP implementation looks like? Has the organisation gone through a similar journey in the past? Was it successful? What training, learning and certification will they require? What the communication of change to the end-users and options available to support those users should be made available?
Those are examples questions only and not meant to act as an exhaustive list of questions.
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Key Considerations to Drive Successful Onboarding of an ERP Solution
To drive a successful onboarding of an ERP solution, the program’s leadership should consider:
· Exploring ERP Advisory services provided by the technology vendor. They know their “stuff” and they can bring the customer organisations ideas that can be capitalised on utilising emerging trends and technologies from the marketplace
· Seeking advice and guidance required to plan and govern the digital transformation of the business process architecture
· Providing the customer with the right amount of information. Customers find too much information or too little information to be equally challenging.
· Engaging in joint workshops with the customer early in the process will ensure getting to grips with the ERP system and user adoption needs.
· Building and fostering a culture of continuous learning within the organisation will create resilience and adaptability, while accelerating the delivery of key benefits from the ERP investment.
The Adoption Process and Why It’s Important
The role of adoption is to ensure that both key stakeholders and end users alike are fully enabled, “ready to go” and prepared to ensure that value generation and realisation can actually begin.
Onboarding was about raising awareness and understanding, adoption however is about actual readiness to access and use the ERP solution. Thus, it tends to be more involved and expensive than the onboarding activities.
We all have seen that organisations across the world have faced unimagined challenges and disruptions in the last two years, which forced them to go down the digital path. Today, and according to IDC, over 65% of the world's economy is digital and by 2023 the digital transformation investment is expected to hit US $6.8 trillion.
The number of ERP solutions used by those organisations over the last couple of years has increased significantly and the rate of procuring more software is not going to slow down any time soon. These Next-generation systems are enabling efficiency, agility, productivity, innovation and most importantly, improvement in ROI.
Modern organisations should develop a clear ERP adoption strategy as it can assist them to utilise their ERP solutions to the fullest potential. In case an organisation is using only a few features of its ERP suite, then the business might not be able to realise the value that they intended to generate from their ERP investment.
The system adoption strategy is important as it:
· Helps end-users at customer organisation to focus on their actual jobs.
· Ensures swifter onboarding, and learning,
· Improves the ERP suite adoption rate across the organisation,
· Facilitates customer organisation to stay relevant and competitive in the market,
· Enables the organisation to use any ERP application to its fullest potential.
Key Considerations to Drive Successful System Adoption
As the old proverb says “Give a person a fish, and they will eat for a day. Teach the person how to fish and you feed them for a lifetime”.
Ensuring effective, long-term, and sustainable system and user adoption is much more than just rolling out training at go-live.
To drive a successful Adoption of an ERP solution, the program’s leadership should consider:
· Executing ERP solution adoption in pilots and using multi-phased approach,
· Utilising and cross-refence lessons learnt from an adoption pilot
· Assessing the adoption pilot and address questions such as:
o What can this ERP capability, application, product, module, or service do for the business?
o How much value can this ERP capability, application, product, module, or service provide?
o How can we make the most use of this application, product, module, or service?
o Who are the directly or indirectly impacted users and/or proponents?
· Assessing organisational, people, and process readiness across the business,
· Fostering continuous learning as a key driver of adoption and is essential to sustainable business success.
· Teaming up with Customer Success Partners from both the ERP vendor and the system integrator(s) to gain full understanding of customers’ needs in relation to multi-phased approach and agree the right set of recommendations.
I have seen throughout my ERP / SAP implementation experience across the globe, that it does not matter how fast you innovate if your end users cannot keep up. Put it simply, there is no innovation without adoption.
Feel free to reach out should you require any advice on your onboarding and adoption.
I would certainly like to hear your thoughts on this subject.
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