Executive buy-in and support is one of the key success factors for any ERP implementation. Without it, your ERP project has very little chance of success. With it, your initiative has the ability to completely transform your business.
When you look at the ERP implementation best practices laid out in our video, 20 Must-know Tips Before an ERP Implementation, it is clear that executive buy-in and support enables most–if not all–of these best practices to become reality. While our research and experience shows that organizational change management, strong project governance, effective business process reengineering and a host of other activities are required for ERP success, executive buy-in and support are the foundational elements of these activities.
In a somewhat surprising way, many executives underestimate the impact their action (or inaction) can have on a project. For optimal results, the executive team needs to understand that it will be much more effective if it is marching in the same direction. Similarly, the organization needs to know that the executive steering committee is unified in its commitment. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Following are five warning signs that your executive team may not be on the same page:
- Differing definitions of what’s important and what’s not. Whether it is a different opinion on the most important business process areas or on the primary measures of implementation success, conflicting definitions will inevitably confuse the organization and the project team. In order for an implementation to work well, the executive team needs to be unified in the definition of priorities for everyone involved. When this key component is in place, other ERP critical success factors have a tendency to fall into place as well.
- Inability to roll up their sleeves and make tough decisions. Executive buy-in entails more than simply approving the project and signing the checks. Executive team members need to be engaged in key decisions that will inevitably impact the operations of the business going forward. Telling certain workgroups that they can’t get exactly what they want from an ERP system or standardizing business processes across multiple workgroups are just two common instances where executive buy-in and alignment becomes very important.
- Discomfort communicating changes to the organization. Executives need to be aligned not only behind the scenes, but also in how they communicate to the organization as a whole. They should be comfortable providing project status updates and other pertinent “What’s in it for me?” information to employees, as well as specific changes that will be affecting various practice areas. Many executives prefer to delegate this type of communication to project managers or core team members, but employees typically receive the information better if it is delivered from an executive team member.
- Poor connection between the ERP implementation and the business vision. Any ERP implementation that doesn’t have the benefit of a clearly defined and communicated business vision is doomed to fail. Without these clear strategic parameters, project team members will struggle to make decisions that best support the strategic direction of the company going forward. This lack of clarity is one of the primary reasons why so many organizations are tempted to make bad decisions regarding customization, business process reengineering and optimization and a host of other common failure points.
- Lack of clearly defined business benefits.> Implementing a new ERP system “just because we have to” isn’t a good enough business justification. Executive team members need to clearly articulate the business benefits they expect from the system, who they expect to be responsible for achieving benefits, how they expect them to achieve benefits, and what will happen if they do or don’t achieve them. According to our 2013 ERP Report, only 40 percent of organizations realize at least half of the business benefits they expect. A majority of this 40 percent has measured performance (and likely continues to measure performance) against the business benefits defined by their executive teams.
Executive alignment won’t guarantee success, but it will at least provide the structure and support necessary to focus the organization on the achievement of ERP success. To learn more, download An Expert’s Guide to ERP Success and read chapter six on organizational change management.
If you’re still looking for additional information on some of the other ERP systems out there, try checking out our exclusive Top 20 ERP Software report. Additionally, pay a visit to the Business-Software.com ERP software resource page, the hub for ERP-related content from us and our network guest contributors.
[This post originally appeared on Panorama Consulting’s 360 ERP blog and is republished with permission.]