Change management is crucial for successful technology implementations, particularly in ERP systems like SAP, as these projects significantly impact business operations and require effective stakeholder engagement. Despite improved technology, a high percentage of implementations fail due to a lack of focus on the people side of change, which necessitates clear communication, training, and management of expectations. Successful ERP projects are characterized by defined success criteria, articulated process improvements, and post-implementation audits to ensure ongoing benefits and continuous improvement.

1. SAP and Change Management
Contributed by Ron Leeman on January 7, 2015 in Information Technology , Organization, Change, & HR
As a “seasoned” Change Manager, I have been
involved in many diverse projects focusing on
managing the business aspect of technology
implementations; e.g. ERP (SAP, Oracle,
Microsoft Dynamics), Core Banking Systems,
Business Intelligence, Case Working and
Knowledge Management solutions, and the
like.
To this day, I continue to be asked why is there a need to have involvement from a Change
Manager, because a technology implementation “is what it is” and once implemented, the
business should just be able to “get on and work with it.” But, it’s not quite as simple as that,
because if you break down the impact of a technology implementation on a business, it
would go something like this:

2.  It will change the way a business operates.
 Key stakeholders will want and need to be involved and communicated with.
 Processes will change.
 Organisation structures will change.
 The readiness of the business will need to be measured to ensure a smooth go-live.
 There will be a need to train and educate people in new ways of working.
 Business benefits as set out in the business case will need to be tracked.
 Once people gain competence with the new technology they should be encouraged to
continuously improve ways of working into the future.
That sounds very simple, but actually it’s not, because all of these things involve people and
they will need to have their expectations and perceptions managed.
Technology implementations aimed at making an organisation more efficient have become
larger and more critical in recent years and now represent a major challenge for
organisations. Despite improved technical functionality and reliability there are still project
overruns, delays and sometimes downright failure. Research continues to show that
between 30% and 70% of technology implementations either fail to meet their targeted
benefits or stall and/or overrun. Problems are typically not related to the system or to
technical issues surrounding the software but instead are often due to business related

3. issues. One of the main reasons cited for this failure rate is that projects are usually
managed from a technical perspective by Project Managers who are driven by milestones
and deliverables but lack the necessary “soft skills” to deal effectively with the people side of
change.
Using SAP (the market leader in ERP solutions) as an example, every implementation of a
SAP solution should take advantage of Change Management. SAP’s long history of
developing enterprise solutions have helped develop best practices that include a lot of tools
and better ways of working within an organisation. It is important that these issues are
taken into account when defining the scope of SAP implementations. So Change
Management should be an integral part of any SAP implementation to ensure that:
 Employees have a solid understanding of why change is happening.
 Employees are engaged in both the solution and the change.
 Training will be used to build knowledge after employees have made the personal
decision to support the change.
 Resistance is identified and dealt with early in the process.
 Senior leaders demonstrate their own and the organisation’s commitment to the
change.

4.  Communications are segmented and customised for different stakeholders
answering the questions that they care about.
 Momentum is built throughout different areas and levels within the organisation.
 Changes are less painful to the organisation and to the employees.
 A coalition of support among senior leaders and managers creates momentum
throughout the organisation.
 The probability of meeting project objectives is increased.
 The organisation begins to build a history of successful change, creating a better
‘backdrop’ for the next change initiative.
And finally the following three things, taken from Panorama Consulting 2013 ERP Report,
that will help you and your project team achieve ERP success are:
1. Clearly define success.
We hear it all the time: for some organizations, anything is better than the ERP system they
currently have in place. However, most organizations also aren’t spending millions on new
ERP software just to realise an incremental improvement. Instead, most are looking for a
tangible return on the investment in that software, just as they would expect from an
investment in an acquisition or any other major capital investment. The problem is that

5. executives generally don’t clearly articulate to the organization what exactly they expect
from the new ERP system and how they will determine whether or not the implementation
is ultimately successful. The business case should be an important mechanism to not only
justify the investment in the ERP system but also to define what will constitute ERP success.
2. Articulate expected process improvements.
Similarly, expected business process improvements should be clearly defined and
articulated to the organization. It’s not enough to simply suggest that the software is going
to make business processes better. Those process improvements should be clearly defined
and documented for employees so they can enable some of the process improvements. Your
people – not the ERP software – will ultimately determine whether or not the process
improvements stick, so rather than assume people won’t revert back to their inefficient
manual processes and spreadsheets, it is much more effective to define the expected
business processes and communicate changes to employees accordingly. This will also make
your organizational change management activities much more effective in the long-run.
3. Conduct post-implementation audit.

6. Even in a perfect world, measurable business goals and process improvements aren’t going
to happen overnight. Beginning 60 to 90 days after implementation, your team should
conduct a post-implementation audit to ensure that actual results are measured and
compared to expected business benefits. In addition, these audits identify where process
improvements are breaking down or presenting additional opportunities for improvement.
Although it can be a harrowing exercise since it will inevitably reveal organizational issues
and business process deficiencies, it is an important way to identify and correct root causes
for the benefit shortcomings. Typically, these audits will reveal low-hanging fruit that can be
remediated with relatively simple prescriptions, such as refresher training or tweaks to
business processes or software configuration. After spending millions of dollars on an ERP
implementation, these investments in post-implementation optimization are relatively
immaterial in the grand scheme of things.
Over the last 25-years or so I have developed and implemented many bespoke change
approaches & strategies for organisations implementing SAP (and other technology
solutions) to enable them to achieve considerable ROI and business benefit. These bespoke
approaches have used as their basis my Practical Framework Approach to Change which
consists of the following components:

7.  Sponsorship – identifying and working with a Sponsor to ensure commitment to
the change initiative and to regularly engage with them in relation to their key
responsibilities, visibility, building support, communication responsibilities,
managing resistance, setting priorities and celebrating success.
 Stakeholder Management and Communication – these components that
underpin my approach. Communication is essentially is about a strategy that
includes messages to be communicated, stakeholder groups to be communicated to,
channels to communicate through and frequency of communications.
 Process Changes – involves creating a process hierarchy, mapping the “As Is” and
“To Be” and from these identifying where the major impacts will be and the
associated stakeholder groups that will be affected. It is helpful for end-users to get
involved in the design stage of the new processes so that they can provide their input
and will be able to be involved and learn at the outset.
 Organisational Change – a natural bi-product of the process changes which will
need to be carefully managed and input from your key stakeholder groups is
essential in the design of job roles & responsibilities and new organisation structures.
This is the one aspect that people are most interested in as it involves “their jobs” so
cannot be underestimated.

8.  Business Readiness and Adoption – this component is about designing and
implementing a business readiness/adoption measurement mechanism to determine
how those impacted by the change will have made all the preparations necessary to
accept the deliverables of a project and begin operating with them
 Training & Education – related to training key stakeholder groups on the new
processes in relation to their new roles & responsibilities the end result of which will
be that the business will be have had the necessary training on each relevant module
and will be ready to adopt the changes.
 Benefits Management — every project should have a business case and this
component is about extracting the key elements from it and implementing
mechanisms to track the benefits detailed in that business case. This needs to be
owned by the business.
 Continuous Improvement – the last but equally important component and one
that is often overlooked by organisations which is about improving your processes as
people get use the new application/system and will find easier and better ways of
doing their work. Creating continuous improvement teams out of your original key
stakeholder groups is the best way to progress this.

9. About Ron Leeman
Ron Leeman has been involved in “change and process” work for more years than he cares to
remember. He has worked extensively across the UK, Europe, and globally--and has an enviable track-
record of delivering organisational change and process initiatives across a wide cross section of industry
sectors. In 2012, Ron was bestowed with a “Change Leader of Tomorrow” award by the World HRD
Congress “in recognition of my remarkable progress in initiating changes enough for others in the same
industry to follow my example”. Ron is firm believer in knowledge transfer and now wants to share his
vast knowledge with those who are considering getting into or at various stages of “change” and/or
“process” work or those working on specific Projects wanting to gain practical insights into “how to” type
situations. You can connect with Ron Leeman on LinkedIn here , where you can view his 85+
Recommendations and in excess of 800 Endorsements from clients and co-workers alike to give you an
indication of the quality of service that he has provided and can offer. Ron is also a document author on
Flevy. Browse his frameworks on Change Management, Process Analysis, and Program Management
here: http://flevy.com/seller/highwayofchange .

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