Change management is a broad topic that encompasses employee buy-in, organizational design, communications, training, cultural assessments, executive alignments and so on. Enterprise systems like PeopleSoft are costly to implement and time-consuming. Information systems implementation such as PeopleSoft is unique and can change an organization from its present state to an entirely new state. As such, social and technical issues need to be managed in the development of such systems. PeopleSoft, like other ERP applications is a process-based software. This means that organizations must be willing to change the way they do business.
People need to be clear on how PeopleSoft will improve their business. First of all, change issues need to be resolved. One key aspect of change can be achieved by seeing the implementation as a business function and not just a technical project in which a handful of people are involved. The irony of the situation is that, most times, the success of ERP implementation does not depend on technology but on positive changes in the way the business is conducted.
An effective PeopleSoft installation will result in the following:
- A change in business processes to fit into the new software and best practices
- A change in the structure of the organization and the roles of staff
- A change in the culture of the organization to promote the enterprise application
Unsuccessful implementations can result in the following problems:
- A situation where people are unwilling to accept the new roles, processes and methods of doing business
- A system that works with both the old and new ways of doing things; certain people may decide to keep the old system in place just in case the new one doesn’t work.
- A system where the PeopleSoft installation does not produce the anticipated benefits such as increased productivity of staff and increased revenue.
- A system where the ERP deployment produces no change whatsoever, despite the huge commitment of resources.
All these instances illustrated above can be quite painful; this is why it’s extremely important to cushion the effects of the new system by preparing for the aforementioned instances. Training staff prior to the PeopleSoft deployment and communicating with all the stakeholders before, after and during the deployment will prove to be beneficial.