Post ERP Implementation Reflections

I am on a plane travelling home from our latest ERP go-live in Sydney, Australia, reflecting on the trip and results. It is the third of 6 divisions planned to be migrated over an 18 month period. It went well in spite of some unexpected challenges, but overall the team was happy. Our external customers were serviced with no excuses. Day one we were able to take orders, ship, and invoice – sounds simple but that is a clear win. We certainly are going to hit some turbulence in the coming weeks but I think that is expected.   What did I learn that I can take with the team to the next three?

Have the right support people on site day one. The biggest positive factor on this implementation was that we had technical and training support on site for the first week. We are a mid-market international company based in Findlay, Ohio. This go-live was 16 hours ahead of Ohio.  We could not have accomplished what we did using remote support. Our users can’t wait for 24 hours to get an answer or assistance. Being on site demonstrated to the Aussie team that the Leadership Team is behind them and we are committed to their success.

You cannot test and train enough. It should go without being said that training and testing are huge. Anyone who has done this will probably tell you there is never enough of either. Old habits die hard, people dislike change, and only through actually using the software will the users commit to it. Don’t just test the easy stuff, test the little processes. Run a month end. Break stuff, then figure out how to fix it.

Have the data conversion experts on call. Data conversion is a critical component of any new implementation. Have the team that developed the data migration either on site or at very least on call. Being able to polish up the data during reconciliation and day one is essential. Even after a half dozen test conversions the data still had to be tweaked.

Let the users know you understand their pain. Empathy. The support team on-site should be prepared for questions, lots of them. Long hours, moments of frustration, and immense satisfaction are all part of the process. Most would agree a new ERP implementation is a traumatic event for all involved. Tell the new users you understand, you know that it is difficult and sometimes frustrating. But beat the drum of positivity. We will succeed, this will be better for all of us as an organization.

We are getting better at this each time.  I hope this helps others that are facing this challenge to succeed.