MIS 262 – Velianitis Phil Devereux and James Pratt

 Most (70%+) ERP rollouts fail, why?  ERP Systems have become increasingly integrated an encompass more end users.  A need for well-managed integrations between different systems and cooperating businesses.  Increases the need for organizational learning.  There is no perfect handbook for organizational learning due to company differences.

 Learning theory states that people learn new skills through structures called “schemas.”  Employees are required to learn a large amount of information in a short amount of time.  This is due to the change from an outdated legacy system to a modern ERP.  As the ERP system increases in complexity, the amount of end user training must increase.

 A company must develop and IT learning strategy that supports the overall goals of the business.  Layered view of Training & Learning Strategies. SIGMIS conference on Computer Personnel Research, 2003

 In 1999 the average US Company trained more of its employees than ever before, IT comprised 9% of the total organizational spending on training. (Symposium on Applied Computing, 2009)  Training is seen as the largest organizational learning aspect in relation to an ERP implementation.  There are three groups which must be trained for any ERP implementation to be successful: ◦ Technical Support Organization (TSO) ◦ Management ◦ End User

 An organization must select a TSO as the starting team to any ERP implementation.  The TSO groups are the subject matter experts from various departments throughout the organization.  Management must also be trained in the business aspects of an ERP.  The final training team is the end-user, these are the people whom will be using the ERP on a daily basis.

 One of the major downfalls of implementing an ERP system is the lack of evidence associated with whether the ERP system is cost effective for your business.  A business must properly identify the organizational impacts of implementing an ERP from a financial standpoint.  ERP systems are still in the growth stage of the maturity model and therefore still uncertain as to long term benefits.

 Another major organizational impact that stems from ERP implementation is customer side quality, i.e. customer end user.  Does the organization tailor to customers who are closely tied to your business process?  This must be taken into account, as no company would want to lose customers over quality issues related to an ERP implementation.

 We have developed a three step process in training your end-user in order to account for quality and customer focus. ◦ Step 1: Define and Emphasize Ownership ◦ Step 2: Develop Training Material ◦ Step 3: Test, Implement and Train

 An ERP implementation is a grueling undertaking that is laden with risk and sometimes un-calculable rewards.  Despite this, more and more companies decide that this risk is worth it as outdated legacy systems continue to become a thing of the past.  These risks can be minimized by increasing organizational learning through the use of a proper end user training program.