Roundtable: Exploring systems implementation and its challenges, London

Last week, we hosted a Connect UK event to discuss systems implementation and the challenges of this which impacts all of our working lives.

We had three excellent speakers each sharing a different perspective on this: Lawrence Jones giving the business perspective from his many years as an ERP Transformation Leader; Emily Nicholls providing the system provider perspective from her role as Supply Chain VP at Anaplan; and Eddie Groom from Argon & Co, sharing his experiences on overlooked elements and how to realise the benefits.

Each of our speakers presented some key insights on what makes a successful – and not successful – system implementation. Driving stimulating conversations on why businesses decide to introduce a new system, what they expect and the final outcome.

The insights shared by our guests are practical and reliable, and support anyone embarking on such a project to keep the focus on what they need from their systems, not just what it can do today.

Business perspective: Lawrence shared six critical success factors for any business when approaching systems:

1. Governance: You need the buy in from the top table to be successful; without this it can be too easy to lose traction
2. Methodology: The core approach of scope, design, build, test, run will always stand you in good stead, so long as you don’t shortcut the scope phase
3. Change management: Get under the skin of the business to understand their strengths, pain points, and what the impact of this is going to be
4. Business case: This documents your support and sets the outcome, and governance, for the whole project
5. People and skills: The right people need to be available to provide knowledge and insight to the project. Short term resources won’t have the depth of knowledge needed
6. Supplier management: Look for a system provider who wants to partner with you and understand your business. A short-term fix will end up being more costly in the long run

Supplier perspective: Emily shared her three key concepts for designing and implementing any system:

1. System connectedness: Let your users spend more time adding value and less time data wrangling by ensuring your systems are fully optimised and connected. This doesn’t mean it has to be a single platform/provider
2. Adoption: Systems implementation always includes process changes, so your users need to understand and accept this. Don’t make it easy for them to revert to old ways
3. Extensibility: Understand the flexibility in your systems and how to adapt the scope as and when required. Out of the box is a good starting place but you need to know that your business needs will be fully met

Transformation perspective: Eddie shared his overview of ensuring success:

1. At the beginning
   – Have a comprehensive business case that is the guiding force throughout
   – Set up for success by ensuring data readiness and identified change agents are in place
2. During transformation
   – Support your change journey with an appropriate methodology, including a formalised communications strategy
   – Training approaches need to relevant and reinforce the upcoming changes and the broader vision
   – Address the inertia and bad habits that inevitably creep in by tracking user adoption and process & data health
3. At the end
   – Hypercare exit needs clear criteria that show how well the new system is embedded
   – Come back to the business case promise and the benefits realisation metrics to demonstrate real value
   – Have a defined transition to run plan by having a run-state training plan, established process owners and continuous improvement programme

For more information on the event and how to join our Connect community click below:

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