The purpose of this article is to tell the story of a company that learned an expensive lesson when it came to implementing a new ERP software system. Despite the best intentions of the company, things did not go well and they ended up in worse shape than they began. Of course, the company name will not be revealed to maintain their privacy.

Every day, I speak with a number of users of various construction and manufacturing software packages. In most cases, the users are not satisfied with their current system and come to me for advice on how to improve their performance with a new package. The majority of the time, they are correct and will benefit greatly from a more advanced software solution. However, in about 20% of the cases, the company that thinks they need new software are destined to be disappointed because they will fail to properly learn and train their employees how to use the new software. I find this to be true regardless of company size, specialization, or industry.

Several years ago, I worked with a medium sized contractor that focused on completing small jobs in small timeframes. The software they were using lacked a lot of the functionality that newer, more advanced software provided and was slowing down their productivity. They came to me for advice on selecting their next package.

Solving their problem seemed simple enough, they just needed to invest in a new manufacturing ERP software package. So, I did some research for them and came across a system that wasn’t top-of-the-line but was definitely capable of meeting their requirements. We all sat in on some demos for the software and agreed that it was a great solution. After the demos were over and the company agreed that the software seemed like a good fit, they decided to have their primary accounting person give the software a “test drive” to test it’s functionality in relation to their needs. However, the fast pace of the company didn’t allow this person enough time during their normal day at the office, so it meant that any trials had to be done after work hours.

Adding to the problem, nobody in the company’s upper management offered to help this individual with this ardous task. Since the assignment was way out of the individual’s skill set and knowledge-base, over a year went by with little to no progress. Finally, after two years, the company decided to purchase the software and install it. They completed some introductory, basic training for their end-users and went live with the new system. However, since their staff was not very technologically-inclined (and wasn’t properly trained), they made the choice to continue operating with their old system in parallel with the new system for an entire year. Why? Because nobody within the company was willing to take the necessary steps to learn the new software and train the users how to properly manage it. Therefore, they essentially doubled their workload for these employees for a whole year out of the (avoidable) fear of the unknown.

This wasteful process points to several key lessons, though. First, upper management was not involved in the software selection and implementation from the beginning, despite the need for them to be involved. Key managers need to be present at all meetings and training sessions so that they can be the internal driving force behind the switch to new manufacturing software. If they don’t know what is going on, how can they pitch in and keep things on track? Their un-involvement also created another problem - the choice of the accounting person to learn the system and train the company. Instead of choosing the person that is best qualified to do these things, they chose the person that they thought would be the most convenient, and lost over 3 years of benefits that they could have realized from the software. Since there was no involvement from upper management, it was later learned that a number of staff employees opted to skip the training sessions since they didn’t appear to be important to management.

The conclusion to be drawn here is that new software will only be as good as the people that use it. And the people that use the software will only be as good at using the software as they are trained and motivated. To be successful with new software, all key members of the company must be involved and management must ensure that proper training and motivation are provided.

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