The People Side of ERP Implementations

Many Lawson ERP users know that the move to CloudSuite is on their horizon, some sooner than others. Today, I want to explore what makes integrated change management an important element for success on these types of projects and the change management activities you can start incorporating today into your preparation efforts.

Let’s start with some questions that some of you may be asking yourselves: Why is change management important to an ERP project? Isn’t this about technology, not people? System users will have no choice but to change; it’s not as if they can just go back to using the old platform after Go Live, right? These are fair things to question, but what you really need to ask yourself is “how much of the success or the return on investment for this project is dependent upon people adopting change?” Or, for our purposes, “how much is it dependent upon people engaging, adopting, and using the new system as designed and intended?” The answer can vary widely based on the nature of the project.

It’s often helpful to put this question in context. Lets use some examples to illustrate a low (or no) people-dependent ROI project vs. one that is highly people-dependent: Installing motion-activated conference room lighting as a cost and energy-saving measure doesn’t require any change in people’s normal behaviors to be a success. On the other end of the spectrum, you may have something like instituting an office recycling program where you’re installing bins for different materials alongside the trash containers.  In this case, you’re