Maximizing Return on Investment Using ERP Applications

SKILLS TO INCLUDE

Once you have adopted an approach to this analysis, the skill areas that must be possessed by the design team include

• Business knowledge
• IT applications process knowledge
• Knowledge of native business processes in the ERP application
• Training in process thinking

Once this is done, it becomes an issue of how to manage the program effectively, which will be addressed in Chapters 10 and 11 dealing with governance and organizational change management. Let’s investigate each of the four skills areas in greater depth.

Business Knowledge

Frequently, business methods or processes have evolved over many years, and current managers, while they may know how to operate their part of the processes, really don’t understand how they integrate with other components of the business. There is a large difference between knowing how to do something and understanding why you are doing it or, for that matter, what effects your actions may have on others. In many businesses, as the organization has developed and expanded over the years and the people who developed current work procedures moved on or left the business, no one has taken the time to explain to new workers the “what, how, or why” of performing the tasks that they are doing. In fact, new employees will continue to solve problems by ad hoc redesign of business process components, not knowing how the current systems work. Typically, this ad hoc redesigning of business processes gets worse over the years unless concerted efforts ...