Week 5
Q.2 Provide examples of events that you think may trigger alterations in a work plan. What would the consequences of such events be?
My response:
During the ERP implementation in different phases various events can force the project plan to be changed or altered. However, the consequences of these changes may vary and can result in acceptable to serious damage to the ERP system provider and the company organization where ERP is being implemented. There are few common events which are responsible for project plan alterations:
1.Computer systems and other devices: it is very common that the organization where ERP is being implemented do not always have compatible computer hardware or other devices for the ERP software package. Sometimes, the company does not have a budget ready for a hardware upgrade and it is quite time consumable process to go through the decision process and get the fund ready for the required hardware. The consequences of a work plan alteration in this case is usually in a range of minimal to medium in monetary terms for the ERP provider but quite serious when time factors are considered.
2.Non-functional System: this this also a common event which occurs during ERP implementation. Sometimes the customer and the provider agrees to do some customization on the ERP system after the pre-implementation phase and the ERP vendor finds out that all the parts of the ERP system is working properly except the customized one, which makes the total system non-functional. This can cost the ERP provider a lot of money as the organization will hold them responsible for that and ask them to pay for the sufferings that the customer had experienced due to the delay of ERP system being full-functional.
3.Employee training and facilities required: it is not very uncommon that the employees of an organization are not skilled enough to use an ERP system and refuse to go for a training as they do not feel comfortable. The employees might have gone through the User Acceptance Test process but later became too busy with their work or think they might start thinking that the training required will be just a bit too much for them to learn. However, it is also common that the organization do not have enough training facilities for the ERP provider to train their staff or the employees might not co-operate because of their team leaders being absent. The consequences of this kind of event are normally overcome easily and do not always do a big damage to the ERP provider or the customer or the organization adopting the ERP system
4.However, sometimes the change in the requirements of the organization can stop the ERP system provider making the ERP software go live and can be proven costly to the ERP vendor.
5.There is also another event which occurs very often that the ERP adopting organization needs its’ other branches of business to be linked and work parallel with the ERP software and the ERP system vendors find it hard to make that possible because the other business might work under a different platform or may not compatible with their ERP system.
