How does ERP conformance with enterprise's business and strategy?

A_1-2 how does ERP conformance with enterprise's business and strategy?

In the following, there are strategies and business objectives in different areas and benefits of integrated systems, which could help us in each area:

Strategic benefits from integrated system	Strategic Perspective
· Improved customer responsiveness · Improved decision-making capabilities · Enhanced organizational flexibility · Strengthened supply chain · Supports future initiatives and building full fledged management information system	· Improve customer orientation and service · Offer competitive products and services · Service availability · Agility in responding to changing business requirements (time to market) · Cost optimization of service delivery · Obtain reliable and useful information for strategic decision making

Operational benefits from integrated system	Operational Perspective
· Up-to-date Financial and Operational Information · Short-closing cycle for Books of Accounts · Reduction in inventories · Effective utilization of employee time · Reduction in total logistics costs · Reduction in procurement costs · Improved maintenance life cycle time/cost · Total visibility of the complete maintenance activity	· Lower process costs · Compliance with external laws and regulations · Transparency · Compliance with inter policies · Improve and maintain operational and staff productivity

Financial benefits from integrated system	Financial perspective
· Minimized operating cost · Reduced assets deployed · Increased return on investments · Improved cash flow · Better control over resources and their deployment	· Expand market share · Increase revenue · Return on investment · Optimize asset utilization · Manage Business risks

Technical benefits from integrated system	Technical Perspective
· Integrated package forces a process-focused approach during implementation · Internet-ready and web-enabled applications provide faster and secure access to the corporate information across the globe · Integrated package reduces the level of training necessary to manage the business · Seamless Integration of IT systems	· Automate and integrate the enterprise chain · Improve and maintain business process functionality · Product/Service innovation · Acquire and maintain skilled and motivated personnel

A-Awareness of the need for change

Today we will tell you the first step which starts with general training and messages. As we have told you before these are the messages which should be disseminate to all employees in different level of company.

This section which is Awareness of the need for change has general messages which should be understood by all employees.

A_1- General training and messages which declare the need of ERP

A_1-1 Main concepts about ERP

• ERP systems use shared databases and control all related business data such as Manufacturing, Finance, Purchasing, Sales, Inventory, Human resources etc.
• ERP systems can be used as a solution for expediting and automating processes from order entry to order management, finance and manufacturing.
• ERP systems are as an information backbone for decision support systems.
• ERP systems not only integrate internal agents but also connect with external agents, customers, suppliers and co-workers. They can use the systems over internet which this reduces costs and increases external agents satisfactions.
• Those enterprises which have felt organizational changes, ERP systems can help them as facilitator. This is with integrating processes within the organization and changing functional-oriented to process-oriented approach in managing the enterprise.
• All companies and branches of an enterprise (Holding company) work coordinately using ERP.
• All processes within organization have to use Best Practices with using ERP. It's no matter it Build To Order or Build To Stock.
• Using ERP means applying and Best Practices from succeeded companies.
• ERP's Flexibility, scalability and supporting most of the business processes could be as a basis for progress and improvement in organization.
• ERP attributes deliver a proper atmosphere for customer servicing, profit improvement, increasing productivity and efficiency. It can cause cost reduction, revenue growth, control improvement, better managerial reports preparation and better information accessibility.
• Information optimization, better market forecasting, proper production scheduling and inventory reduction are ERP using consequences.
• Work flow management technology and e-commerce can reduce operational costs. ERP can help you in this area.
• Removing island systems with high maintaining costs and replacing with integrated world class systems can facilitate receiving WTO preconditions.
• ERP makes enterprise to talk with one common language across the departments.

Disseminate following messages to different levels of organization:

• ERP means creating systematic intuition in organization
• ERP means speed and accuracy in operations
• ERP means emphasize on information within organization
• ERP means total integration between systems in the organization
• ERP means better service to customer
• ERP means restarting and one more opportunity for redesigning the processes
• ERP means radical thinking of processes for achieving better quality and servicing
• ERP means change in legacy processes
• ERP means deleting non active processes and maintaining and developing active ones
• ERP means new sight to organization and optimizing it
• ERP means deleting barriers to restructuring in organization
• ERP means transferring from traditional management to effective management
• ERP means availability to accurate, on time and related information to the concerned people
• ERP means using from global best practices
• ERP means planning on organization resources: Man, Machine, Money and Material

Important Notes

Important notes:

• Because in communications we have to send our purposes in short and meaningful messages, thus in this document messages are prepared in separate small ones.
• In some cases for more clarifications, some more details are given, especially for clarifying procedures and processes.
• Messages and detailed information should be first be understood by project team and then be scattered to the concerned people as mentioned in the text and be used in your communications.
• According to your company existing facilities, messages should be disseminated via office automation system capabilities, billboards etc.
• We have tried to put most important and common messages in each area, but it is clear you can add more messages to each group.
• Questions are extracted from the ADKAR model for each step and as mentioned previously answers are given in short messages. Thus if you need to know much more detail about the questions you should read ADKAR book.
• You may see some messages with the same meaning and concept but in different sentences. It is done so deliberately because different audiences need their own languages.

Because each integrated system has its own strengths and weaknesses, and we wanted to cover all integrated systems, therefore we have focused on ERP systems as the target system. That means because ERP systems have a well-known principles and are on a best practices approach, we can use ERP change management activities' for our non-ERP systems too. In other word, you can you this document almost for every integrated system. Of course, as we have mentioned in this document, you need a few manipulations regarding to your system capabilities.