Discussion Assignment Question

Several issues or failures to succeed with the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) that resulted in lawsuits between companies and contracted providers are depicted in Chapter 10 of the course textbook

. Large-scale rollouts of ERP systems are notoriously difficult to pull off and fraught with cost overruns.

Inadequate training, employee groups' buy-in or failure to embrace a change to a utilization of the new technology, poorly designed or incompatible software with legacy systems, and other factors are often stated to be the source of difficult transitions to ERP systems.

Question:

If you were the CIO of a large enterprise and the rollout and implementation of an ERP system was going badly, where would you begin to try to determine what was causing the difficulties that are being encountered in the project?

Would you bring in an outside consultant or rely on in-house talent to track down the causes for the less-than-optimal outcomes? Why would you choose one asset over the other?

Remember, one goal in the Discussion assignments is to create an atmosphere of interaction by posting meaningful responses that advance and expand the depth of the discussion.

Do this by providing additional support to your peers' initial and response posts, or if appropriate, by challenging them if you feel that the data that they presented is weak.

Likewise, when a peer challenges the data in your posts, debate the issue, and providing further support for your points of view on the topic.