Success word is one of the most ill defined word in the lexicon of our work place , our life and of the world we live in. Most of the time it simply gets camouflaged or cocooned inside the veil of relativity rather than absoluteness as with different perspectives, the parameters of success get changed its meaning or corrected its course . In fact with the moving timeline also the same parameters get further refined or redefined so also the word success shifts its explanation. It is not so surprising while taking any new drive or starting new project , implementing new scheme or working on any new solution , steering forth a new initiative or settling down a new deal, the bigger tranche of study ,survey and scholastic exploration simply dedicated to capture the timeline as well as trueness of success achieved as set forth at the beginning of the activity. Very far reached tangibility, or elusive measure as correlation between investment and impact have never been direct enough just put the entity claimed to be successful one(may be project or person whoever) always in dilemma to declare when it can raise the toast for its achievement as success.
Nothing is more truer when it goes for the implementation of modular software packages called ERP in any organization. In an Enterprise Solution (which includes all the extended family of ERP like SCM, CRM, Sales automation and so on)market highly consolidated rather than fragmented where SAP, Oracle, Sage, Infor or MS rules the maximum roast, the most sought after word if any by the clients are when they can call it success while implementing it. Just googling the success rate of ERP will bring forth more harrowing stories rather than helpful ones which may be enough to upset any organization to further contemplate to stich and smoothen its process by any such packaged suite of solution most of which(the stories or allegories) are always half truth because whether you celebrate it as your achievement or condemn it as failure all these narratives depend on how you conceive it at first instance , contour it at the beginning of its journey.
Defining an objective framework for any such all pervasive solution which scratches at every nook and cranny inside the organization once unleashed has always been seen to be the first critical factor or determinant of future success of such complex software. These objective may vary from highly tangible and short term or operational one like faster cash cycle or business cycle to intangible and long term or organisational ones like empowerment etc which may be summed as follows:
- Operational:cost reduction/cycle time reduction/productivity- efficiency improvement/quality improvement /responsiveness improvement/ Supply chain frontiers improvement
- Managerial: Better resources or optimal utilisation/ sustainable/ improved decision making/performance improvement
- Strategic: support for business growth/business alliance/business innovation/cost leadership/product differentiation/customer focuses, networking etc.
- IT infrastructure(Building business flexibility for current and future change/IT cost reduction/Increased IT infra capability
- Organisation benefit; Changing work pattern/org learning/ KM/empowerment/sharing and sticking to common goals)mission vision and strategy.
And all these objectives whether defined by tangible or intangible parameters or else by time lines (long term , short term or intermediaries) are the result of running the best business processes as professed by the developer with real time data delivery on a monolithic system architecture.
Indisputably these all are transforming parameters (rather than just automating as normally known ERP as) of any organization to make it a smart , sleek new age company has to face inevitable collision with anachronism prevailing in the company till the other day. All these refined, renewed or newbie processes will go under the constant scrutiny and scanning of the employees who had been invested in their old , conventional ones for so long and that’s also to their satisfaction so far. While the system world got hugely invested in to know what actually any user, the end customer of such complex solution wants , the first break through came from Mcleane Delone in their scholastic article to articulate what an user desires from new system. The mostly cited paper so far on success measurement so far in any system research. The duo authors in fact reoriented their most discussed findings on success measures in another decade to squarely focus on individual impact and organisational impact of IS system in general which surely includes the entry of e-commerce or ES at the later stage of information revolution. The framework of these measures very aptly fit with the broad definition of success which trifurcate well accepted perception about success of ERP as
- How satisfied the user is . The basic idea of success is always about the satisfaction of user who are supposed to get over to new environment from the conventional one. It should certainly help him or her to work with more ease , further functionality , more reliability , flexibility of system , portability , integration and importance of it as well as data quality. The attribute is called in breadth System Quality
- Once convinced about the system quality , the System-Use the next attribute of success would be followed naturally with the frequency , time , dependency , pattern of use of the system by user .
- Information qualityplays another role to declare whether the implementation is successful or not. While switching over from legacy or silo system to integrated or modular one , the data plays the major role to create enthusiasism or excitement. Pure , pristine data when processed creates hugely valuable information helping to take the faster decision . So the accuracy , timeliness, completeness , consistency and integrity of data is what an user gets assured of while shifting to new system. This quality data actually decides the quality of decision again.
- In such a new environment the best incentives to attract the users are always derived from efficient and effective knowledge transfer or more precisely knowledge osmosis between the SI or Software Developer with the client organization. So Service Qualityof these complimentor as normally the System Integrator or solution providers called is another index of success .The empathy, the assurance , the competency to transfer knowledge all these are the most desired from the service providers for the users to feel content with the new environment.
So the “net benefits” comprising of all the above ultimately lead to user satisfaction which may warrant the success the organization set forth because of achievement of predefined benefits , tangible and intangible both.
In the other case success may be attributed to the implementation of the whole system as desired (with integration, control ,tables and reports ) by simply automating the process where the integrator gets signed off showing how the packaged software enabled the system not showing how effective or efficient it has been benchmarking with the best in the industry. Success here is defined by the project time lines not the performance metrics (normally in state run organization which are bound by norm and obsessed by nature most of the time with the cost of any project rather than the benefits from it)
While declaring the success of the integrated software like ERP , we must not forget that this type of implemenation has been always an irreversible journey. Once switched over from the legacy to this monolithic , single data defined technically three tier environment , it will be disastrous if we leave in between or stop at the middle as any retraction ,retreat or reversal from such project where huge amount of resources like time , money etc invested will surely dent deep in the financial health of the organization. And once the stability or robustness of the software are unsettled because of the reluctant implementation or half baked integration, the whole decision support system of the company will collapse or get a huge jolt creating a sense of entrapment in the industry from which recovery or reverting back to past process or system will be a tremendous challenge. As we know the half information or fractured knowledge does more harm than help, so once abandoned in the midst where information won’t be federated with centralized control and coordination the same solution which promised the moon will just end up in creating a huge crater in the industry from which the recovery will be just next to impossible. Whether the failure comes in objectives unfulfilled , project (and so cost)over run , or just unaccepted by the users (due to organization or cultural misfit ) , it ultimately cost the company very high specially when a transformative change have already set in and the company is at the cross road to get over to a completely different environment. Unlike normal information technology of any stand alone software or net working solution ,which gets built up from the scratch , the shared software like ERP just impound its knowledge from its deep and wide process-ware and system-ware in existing environment by further configuring them , customizing them and if needed changing them totally which by default is unidirectional in nature creating very fast the point of no return.
And finally we must appreciate any organization keeps running on so many new initiatives, schemes and strategies of which ERP is one of them which basically works on management of data transfer , data processing and decision making with equal human intervention. Now espousing or evaluating a direct correlation between the investment and impact of a particular solution in the form of rate of return, net profit after tax or any increase in turnover or any such change in all those efficiency indexes is quite difficult when captured all the activities in an interdependent and dynamic state. Studying any of them in regard of success in a mutually exclusive way is susceptible to lots of error and misinterpretation at any point of time. So continuous vigil as well as valuable time of the top management , close monitoring by project team backed with with change management plan along with seamless knowledge transfer from SI must ensure the strategizing , restrategizing , course correction whenever required not to allow any ERP project to be converted to another money sucking black hole in any organization . The org. transformative traits of this type of project demands containing the failure at any cost rather than claiming success which normally keep elusive for long.