The difference between leadership and management can be summarized as follows: leadership is the process of influencing others, and facilitating collective efforts to achieve objectives. A leader should also consider what the team members want, and should have followers. Management is more related to work structure and systems, he has formal authority and subordinates. As a part of Global ERP Implementations, Self-Managing Virtual (SMV) Teams can be analyzed. They are not leader dependent teams but decision making is done collectively by team members. Besides showing leadership in virtual teams is harder. In shared Leadership individuals share the leader role. In self-leadership, you get yourself do something. These leaders create role-models for their teams.
There are 2 kinds of leadership behaviors: Task- oriented and Relationship oriented. Task- oriented leaders configure how to change processes. Relationship oriented leadership can be also used in SMV’s on e-mails, with a positive group atmosphere being created and asking people’s opinions and encouraging outsiders to participate. Relationship oriented leaders may also use boundary spanning which means they connect team to outsiders and act as knowledge brokers.
During the FNSS company presentation, we learned that ERP implementation may not necessarily reduce the number of processes or reduce the workload in a company. Rather it would be more useful in increasing the quality of data and quality of the processes in the company.
ERP Options in implementation strategy can be discussed under the following dimensions:
a. Timeline: In Big-Bang Implementation, the system changes all at once. The advantage is that it offers a shorter period of uncertainty. Phased implementation’s advantage is that it becomes easier for the employees to adapt themselves and through learning effects, each round there is an increasing performance of adaptation. Another advantage of phased implementation is that is easier to finance because you can make incremental payments. In fact this 2 approaches are two ends of a spectrum and companies should use a combination of both according to their specific conditions and needs.
b. Staff/Resources: Resources can be obtained by outsourcing or in-house. However, it is advised that using a combination of them. For instance, a company cannot do whole process by in-house, because everyone cannot be IT specialists, some consultants will be needed. On the other hand, it cannot be 100% outsourced, because some in-house knowledge will be always necessary.
c. Customization Level: should also be managed. The original ERP software can be added some modules or some integration points can be added to combine company’s old software with the new. However, it is costly to upgrade them and to use patchs; therefore, customization should be used only if it is absolutely necessary. Being somewhere in between fully customized system and as-is Implementation; and preferably being closer to As-Is implementation on the continuum is the best.
There is also a second continuum in this dimension. Customization takes place on one side and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) on the other side. If you do not customize, you need to change your own processes and it is better to be close to BPR side of the continuum while using a combination of both.
ASAP (Accelerated ASAP) Methodology includes the following steps:
1. Project Preparation: high level plan is prepared, project team is organized.
2. Business Blueprint preparation: Business processes are defined. FRICE control list is used in this phase (Form, Report, Interface, Conversion & Enhancement)
3. Realization : This step has a heavy workload including unit test (for individual transactions), integration test (testing for coherence among all business processes working together), stress test (to see whether the system can handle full-capacity workload), and support packs- upgrading testing (done after implementation a few times a year to detect bugs in critical cycles). Using simulation tools is recommended in this stress test. The realization phase ends after final-user acceptance is obtained.
4. Final Preparation: Final system rehearsal should be made in this phase and it is better to simulate how you would go-live. Final-system cutover should be decided, meaning a time to go-live should be scheduled to shut down old and to move to the new system. This cutover time should be chosen so that it does not disturb work-flow. For instance, it can be performed at the weekend. In this phase there is possibility of having parallel systems: old and new systems being used together for a certain time period to avoid risk of failure. However, this parallel structure is time-consuming and costly therefore, it should last only for a short period.
5. Go-Live &Support: There is a move from project environment to live production environment in this phase. For the first 1-2 weeks there should be a review of issue log, meaning periodic meetings at the beginning of implementation as status update. Help desk support by super-users should be provided.
6. Continuous Improvement and process reviews should be performed.
Showing posts with label Meric Turker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meric Turker. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
BilkentMBA2010, Lessons Learned, Week 3
In managing the organizational change process it is very critical to overcome resistance to chance. A vision, strategy, goals and initiatives have to be carefully decided on. In addition, to overcome change resistance, employees should be told about how they will benefit from the new system and they should be involved in the change management system before finalizing decisions. The new system should be designed to address their needs and people should be empowered to take responsibility in change.
Organizational Change Management (OCM) involves the search for the answers of what, why, how, who, when and where questions for the ERP Implementation. Although people stuff (training, communications, security authorization, etc..) is misperceived as the soft stuff and technical issues (transporting old data into new system, blueprinting, etc..) as the hard stuff of the OCM, in practice this is not true. It is harder to confront people compared to technical issues and therefore the most important people initiatives should be identified and they should be made priority of OCM. Company culture (which includes values, beliefs and norms) also needs to be taken into consideration while managing the change. For instance, it can be especially harder to convince people on the benefits of change in a conservative/bureaucratic company culture, and issues must be handled with greater care in such an environment.
The 5 initiatives of OCM, which are interrelated and which support each other, can be addressed as following:
1. Training: core team training and management seminar should take place early in the project as an overview. End-user training which takes place later, is more time consuming, detailed and requires preliminary work such as training need analysis and course content development.
2. Communications: the determination of content/message, audience, communication channel (e.g. e-mail, lunch meeting, etc..), frequency, communicator, supporting material developer and messages and objectives constitute the elements of a communications plan. It is usually hard for the end-users to understand and embrace the system before go-live
3. Security/Role Development: the transactions that an end-user is authorized to complete should be determined.
4. Super-user Development: objectives, selection criteria (such as communication skills, being respectable, high knowledge level) should be determined and super-users must be trained. An open channel between super-users and end-users should be created. These super-users become the first contract of end-users in case of a problem. In return, they report key problems to technical analysts, who can ask the issues to business owners. The demand on super-users on the first months is very high and it is hard to estimate demand at that time.
5. Business Process Procedure: BPP should be documented to define the steps on how each transaction is used within the ERP system. This should be done before training process.
Risk Assessment: involves 5 steps which are; risk identification, impact identification, probability determination, risk index (result of impact) and mitigation of the risk (how to deal with risk).
Organizational Change Management (OCM) involves the search for the answers of what, why, how, who, when and where questions for the ERP Implementation. Although people stuff (training, communications, security authorization, etc..) is misperceived as the soft stuff and technical issues (transporting old data into new system, blueprinting, etc..) as the hard stuff of the OCM, in practice this is not true. It is harder to confront people compared to technical issues and therefore the most important people initiatives should be identified and they should be made priority of OCM. Company culture (which includes values, beliefs and norms) also needs to be taken into consideration while managing the change. For instance, it can be especially harder to convince people on the benefits of change in a conservative/bureaucratic company culture, and issues must be handled with greater care in such an environment.
The 5 initiatives of OCM, which are interrelated and which support each other, can be addressed as following:
1. Training: core team training and management seminar should take place early in the project as an overview. End-user training which takes place later, is more time consuming, detailed and requires preliminary work such as training need analysis and course content development.
2. Communications: the determination of content/message, audience, communication channel (e.g. e-mail, lunch meeting, etc..), frequency, communicator, supporting material developer and messages and objectives constitute the elements of a communications plan. It is usually hard for the end-users to understand and embrace the system before go-live
3. Security/Role Development: the transactions that an end-user is authorized to complete should be determined.
4. Super-user Development: objectives, selection criteria (such as communication skills, being respectable, high knowledge level) should be determined and super-users must be trained. An open channel between super-users and end-users should be created. These super-users become the first contract of end-users in case of a problem. In return, they report key problems to technical analysts, who can ask the issues to business owners. The demand on super-users on the first months is very high and it is hard to estimate demand at that time.
5. Business Process Procedure: BPP should be documented to define the steps on how each transaction is used within the ERP system. This should be done before training process.
Risk Assessment: involves 5 steps which are; risk identification, impact identification, probability determination, risk index (result of impact) and mitigation of the risk (how to deal with risk).
Monday, July 19, 2010
Lessons Learned, Week 2
Decision on whether to use ERP:
- The initial need for ERP arises from several reasons such as; growth in the company, current systems not handling the load, increase in business complexity, to improve processes and to reduce costs, to increase financial control, to obtain better information about operations, for accounting purposes, or as a system to maintain data integrity with increase in efficiency.
- On the other hand, some companies may prefer not to implement ERP due to the following factors: resistance to change, high costs of implementation and additional modules, high development and integration costs, ERP implementation is not in line with company strategy, the company has its own compatible software, costs do not justify the benefits, or company does not have enough staff to work on ERP implementation project.
Success of ERP: 80 percent of ERP projects fail in implementation phase, meaning they do not meet one of the following 3 criteria for success: meeting the needs and requirements of customers, meeting the budget, meeting the timeline.
ERP vendor firms are now moving on to Europe, Middle East and Asia because US market is in maturity phase now. They initially target larger and medium sized companies but they will move toward smaller sized firms in time.
There are 2 main potential analyses before deciding to implement ERP: SWOT and GAP Analysis. SWOT Analysis is about strengths& weaknesses of the company(internal analysis)and opportunities& threats in the environement that the company operates(environmental analysis). GAP Analysis involves both business and technology analyses, is about where I am (as-is), where I want to be and how can I go there. ERP is a possible resource to move on to the target situation. GAP analysis is related to Enterprise Architecture (EA) concept developed by Zachman.
- EA is the analysis and documentation of an enterprise in its current and future states from a strategy, business and technology perspective. It helps to integrate and manage IT resources from a strategy and business driven viewpoint.
- From the EA Cube Framework options, it is important to choose the one that is the most understandable. Also its components should be checked to see if it fits your company’s strategy and structure. Also the level of detail should be in line with company needs.
EA and ERP comparison:
- EA and ERP are not competing applications; EA can help you decide if ERP is beneficial for your firm.
- Both EA and ERP need change management, strategy alignment, and continuous maintenance activities (ERP involves adding new modules in time, EA should also be reviewed periodically.)
- Both EA and ERP need insider information as well as external expertise to implement.
Business Involvement in ERP:
- To provide resources and show commitment, putting corporate VP’s and functional sponsors in project steering team is important.
- Business process owners who are responsible in business processes and who has right to change business process, should be employed.
- Successful people within organization should be trained first and used as internal consultants in training other employees. (these people are called super-users)
- Some workers should be assigned as role profile owners, approving security requests and deciding who has access to what information.
Organizational Change Management:
- ERP Organizational Change management has 5 initiatives which are; training, business process procedures, communications, super-user development and security/role development
- About 25% of ERP budget should be spent in change management
- EA organizational change management initiatives include; top supervision, training and communication.
- The initial need for ERP arises from several reasons such as; growth in the company, current systems not handling the load, increase in business complexity, to improve processes and to reduce costs, to increase financial control, to obtain better information about operations, for accounting purposes, or as a system to maintain data integrity with increase in efficiency.
- On the other hand, some companies may prefer not to implement ERP due to the following factors: resistance to change, high costs of implementation and additional modules, high development and integration costs, ERP implementation is not in line with company strategy, the company has its own compatible software, costs do not justify the benefits, or company does not have enough staff to work on ERP implementation project.
Success of ERP: 80 percent of ERP projects fail in implementation phase, meaning they do not meet one of the following 3 criteria for success: meeting the needs and requirements of customers, meeting the budget, meeting the timeline.
ERP vendor firms are now moving on to Europe, Middle East and Asia because US market is in maturity phase now. They initially target larger and medium sized companies but they will move toward smaller sized firms in time.
There are 2 main potential analyses before deciding to implement ERP: SWOT and GAP Analysis. SWOT Analysis is about strengths& weaknesses of the company(internal analysis)and opportunities& threats in the environement that the company operates(environmental analysis). GAP Analysis involves both business and technology analyses, is about where I am (as-is), where I want to be and how can I go there. ERP is a possible resource to move on to the target situation. GAP analysis is related to Enterprise Architecture (EA) concept developed by Zachman.
- EA is the analysis and documentation of an enterprise in its current and future states from a strategy, business and technology perspective. It helps to integrate and manage IT resources from a strategy and business driven viewpoint.
- From the EA Cube Framework options, it is important to choose the one that is the most understandable. Also its components should be checked to see if it fits your company’s strategy and structure. Also the level of detail should be in line with company needs.
EA and ERP comparison:
- EA and ERP are not competing applications; EA can help you decide if ERP is beneficial for your firm.
- Both EA and ERP need change management, strategy alignment, and continuous maintenance activities (ERP involves adding new modules in time, EA should also be reviewed periodically.)
- Both EA and ERP need insider information as well as external expertise to implement.
Business Involvement in ERP:
- To provide resources and show commitment, putting corporate VP’s and functional sponsors in project steering team is important.
- Business process owners who are responsible in business processes and who has right to change business process, should be employed.
- Successful people within organization should be trained first and used as internal consultants in training other employees. (these people are called super-users)
- Some workers should be assigned as role profile owners, approving security requests and deciding who has access to what information.
Organizational Change Management:
- ERP Organizational Change management has 5 initiatives which are; training, business process procedures, communications, super-user development and security/role development
- About 25% of ERP budget should be spent in change management
- EA organizational change management initiatives include; top supervision, training and communication.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Bilkent MBA2010, Elevator Speech , Week 2
A possible elevator speech of me for a research and financial consulting firm would be:
“I am a graduate of Bilkent University’s management department and have 4 years of working experience in banking sector. I worked in the Headquarter of one of the top private banks of Turkey. Adding into it my expected MBA degree from Bilkent University, I have refreshed my knowledge in the area and added new knowledge and skills. As a person who combines wide variety of skills such as foreign language proficiency, computer skills, as well as research, analyzing and teamwork skills; I believe I will create a difference for your company. In the bank sector related consulting projects that your firm specializes in, or in research oriented projects I can benefit your company with those mentioned skills and my detailed industry and management knowledge.”
“I am a graduate of Bilkent University’s management department and have 4 years of working experience in banking sector. I worked in the Headquarter of one of the top private banks of Turkey. Adding into it my expected MBA degree from Bilkent University, I have refreshed my knowledge in the area and added new knowledge and skills. As a person who combines wide variety of skills such as foreign language proficiency, computer skills, as well as research, analyzing and teamwork skills; I believe I will create a difference for your company. In the bank sector related consulting projects that your firm specializes in, or in research oriented projects I can benefit your company with those mentioned skills and my detailed industry and management knowledge.”
Monday, July 12, 2010
BilkentMBA2010, Lessons Learned, Week 1
ERP Sytem is a modular and integrated system. It is a complete suite of integrated applications consisting of different modules such as Finance, Accounting, Sales, Manufacturing, etc..If used effectively, ERP eliminates need for duplicate information.
ERP History consists of following phases:
MRPI- Material Resources Planning
MRPII- Includes financial and human aspects as well
ERR- Includes forecasting, supply chain management with many modules
ERPII- Included more strategic components such as CRM and Business Intelligence.
Difference between BI and Datamining:
- BI creates reports for decision making.
- Datamining looks for patterns in data to make a business decision such as investigating demographic effect on buying a product.
“In Best of Breed Approach” of ERP, the firm buys best modules from different vendors.
Also if a module is missing in an ERP software, it is possible to use Bolt-on’s which are 3rd party softwares. However there is a risk in using Bolt-on’s because integration points should be managed by the firm itself.
Costs of ERP:
- Hardware
- Software licence
- Implementation
- Consulting
- Training
- After go-live support
Benefits of ERP:
- Process efficiency (better info flow)
- Competitive advantage benefits (e.g. higher revenues, better supply chain management)
- Strategic benefits (better decision making)
ERP systems are provided by some major players such as Oracle and SAP, some smaller vendors and also by open-source ERP systems such as OFBIZ, WebERP and Compiere. The ERP system (major vendor, smaller vendor, or open-source) should be carefully chosen with respect to needs and technical capability of a company.
In the open-source systems, software source code is available for everyone to see. Advantages include the following:
- Mostly they are free
- They can have high security and stability because many people look at the code and find bugs
- They have an existing community and can be used as a leverage of resources
On the other hand, it can be expensive to develop open source systems further, requiring an in-house development team. Also community cannot be depended upon solving problems on a scheduled basis.
Buying a Major SW is better if company has less development experience and in terms of following the best practices in the industry.
Smaller ERP SW’s, can develop niche software which larger companies may not serve and they are lower priced. However, they are also riskier because you do not know how long they will stay in business
Business Process Reengineering: involves business process analyzing and optimizing those systems in terms of time, workers, etc..while decreasing cost and increasing customer satisfaction.
Meric Turker, Week 1
ERP History consists of following phases:
MRPI- Material Resources Planning
MRPII- Includes financial and human aspects as well
ERR- Includes forecasting, supply chain management with many modules
ERPII- Included more strategic components such as CRM and Business Intelligence.
Difference between BI and Datamining:
- BI creates reports for decision making.
- Datamining looks for patterns in data to make a business decision such as investigating demographic effect on buying a product.
“In Best of Breed Approach” of ERP, the firm buys best modules from different vendors.
Also if a module is missing in an ERP software, it is possible to use Bolt-on’s which are 3rd party softwares. However there is a risk in using Bolt-on’s because integration points should be managed by the firm itself.
Costs of ERP:
- Hardware
- Software licence
- Implementation
- Consulting
- Training
- After go-live support
Benefits of ERP:
- Process efficiency (better info flow)
- Competitive advantage benefits (e.g. higher revenues, better supply chain management)
- Strategic benefits (better decision making)
ERP systems are provided by some major players such as Oracle and SAP, some smaller vendors and also by open-source ERP systems such as OFBIZ, WebERP and Compiere. The ERP system (major vendor, smaller vendor, or open-source) should be carefully chosen with respect to needs and technical capability of a company.
In the open-source systems, software source code is available for everyone to see. Advantages include the following:
- Mostly they are free
- They can have high security and stability because many people look at the code and find bugs
- They have an existing community and can be used as a leverage of resources
On the other hand, it can be expensive to develop open source systems further, requiring an in-house development team. Also community cannot be depended upon solving problems on a scheduled basis.
Buying a Major SW is better if company has less development experience and in terms of following the best practices in the industry.
Smaller ERP SW’s, can develop niche software which larger companies may not serve and they are lower priced. However, they are also riskier because you do not know how long they will stay in business
Business Process Reengineering: involves business process analyzing and optimizing those systems in terms of time, workers, etc..while decreasing cost and increasing customer satisfaction.
Meric Turker, Week 1
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