HOW CAN AN ERP HELP YOU PLAY GOLF??

ERP and Golf…. Sounds like two different worlds. But yes they are related.  You’ll soon discover how.

It will be foolish of me to ask you if you are aware of what an ERP is?. I am sure that you would have heard in various Forums about the ERP being your guarantee for success… …The great Mantra for keeping you ahead of the competition.

If you were to speak to your contacts in your Business Circle and take their opinion on how their experience has been with the ERP, the chances are that you will get a mixed response. While some will appear extremely happy with the ERP, some will appear disgusted and some will give you a neutral response.

The people who are extremely happy are the people you will often meet on the Golf Circuit…. Well ofcourse playing Golf. And simply because ERP has helped them so much in managing their operations that they don’t have to spend the day fire-fighting their business figures, their people and their processes. They get their crucial business information in time. As a result they are able to find ample amount of time for Golf.  By the way if Golf doesn’t excite you, you can choose anything that did.

So how come that if ERP was a magic mantra, yet people have different experiences with it. The reasons can be manifold and there are no conclusive reasons which can be singled out for the success/failure of the ERP. However it surely will be a combination of the reasons given below. Before you go into the ERP, take sufficient precautions against these reasons. I can bet that if you do take these precautions, your ERP implementation will be a great success too and you too can find more than enough time to play Golf.

1. People buy ERP because someone told them that it will solve ALL their problems: There is no ERP which can be a panacea for all your problems. If you are buying an Organizer, the Organizer alone cannot help you plan or manage. You have to aid the Organizer for it to be able to help you manage your time better. Similarly an ERP can only aid you solve your problems.  So if your expectation from ERP is that it is a magic wand, an ERP failure is certainly on the Cards.  Simply stay away from the Vendor’s aggressive Sales Teams which promise that ERP is a magic wand.
2. The Resource Commitments: An ERP implementation exercise will  suck up a “Tremendous” amount of resources(time and people) at your end. People make “Financial investments” in buying ERP without foreseeing the “Resources investment” it will require to implement it. The Resource investments can be significantly huge. As a result many organizations buy an ERP and then either fail to implement or have a sketchy implementation. A sure shot way to keep yourself away from the Golf Course.
3. Not knowing what you and Users want: This is one of the most common problems found during the ERP implementation. People just don’t know what to do after they have bought the ERP. The ERP implementation vendor comes in and shows you a few processes and takes a sign-off from you for the implementation. They are least bothered to understand the User’s requirements. Their job is just to do the whole thing mechanically and move on. As a result when the Users get to use the Software, they discover that its far from what they wanted. Either the ERP processes don’t suit them or the ERP vendor is unwilling to mould the software to their processes.  As a result sooner or later such implementations fail or people just use the ERP to do some basic work only like taking out POs, Item Receipt, Basic Finance transactions etc. So though you have bought a jet, you are only using it as a Car.
4. Time expectations: During the Sales process, you will hear Sales Commitments from Vendor’s Sales teams that you will Go-Live with the ERP in just a month or two.  If you plan your organization for such aggressive time plans, you are headed for disaster. The reality is that ERP implementations can take anywhere from 4 months to a year(or even more). So it is a long drawn process for various reasons attributable both to the Client than the ERP vendor(More so to the Client). Wrong built up of expectations can thus let your planning go haywire and also built frustrations amongst Users and the Management. And when someone at the top looses the Patience, it’s the end of the ERP story and a few heads in the organization.

If you guard yourself well against these points, your ERP implementation is guaranteed for success.  And you can surely find yourself enough time later for Golfing.

About the Author

The Author, Prakash Gopalani, is the Head of Sales and Marketing at Eastern Software Systems(ESS). ESS owns ebizframe and ebizframeNEO ERP which are the leading ERPs for the mid-market space in India. He can be contacted on prakash-gopalani@essindia.co.in or at +91-9810095439