Enterprise IT application consolidation made easier
Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and their teams are changing the software environment at large and mid-size organizations. Often in conjunction with the wave of data-center consolidation in the hardware space, CIOs are consolidating and eliminating software applications that facilitate financial, sales, and other management systems.
Why Consolidate Now?
Over the past few years, major acquisitions by the largest software vendors - Oracle and SAP in particular - have changed the market landscape. Conversely, players in the mid-sized market - Piviotal, Great Plains, Navision, Axapta, Systems Union, and Damgaard - have been acquired. Customers must look to larger vendors for more concrete roadmaps - forcing many organizations to consider switching software platforms.
Legacy applications are also under review in response to the need for software flexibility and the demands of new network architecture from fewer data centers. In an August 2006 benchmark survey of 1000 manufacturers, Aberdeen found that 13% had software more than 15 years old and 18% had 10-15 year-old software. With software fully amortized and 50-80% of IT budgets earmarked for maintenance, CIO's and operations executives need to reexamine the operational fitness and strategic usefulness of existing applications in new environments.
Standardization makes it easier to audit, manage and secure software applications and enforce compliance. However, standardized application deployment is not the norm. According to the recent Aberdeen report, "The ERP in Manufacturing Benchmark Study," only 20% of large manufacturers ($1 billion or more in sales) have implemented a single ERP system and 1/3 such companies have four or more systems. Even reports of using a single system may not take into account that some software may be as many as two or three versions behind the latest release. While all this variation may increase IT management complexity, it will not necessarily improve IT effectiveness.
The User Challenge
Management generally considers consolidation as part of a business process optimization initiative. In reality, users must relearn their jobs when IT software and processes change. The results, unfortunately, are often sub-optimal.
The roll-out of new software and processes demands a steep employee learning curve. Sometimes, the roll-out takes place in stages and is out-of-sync with training resources and the accuracy of documentation. Employees do not have enough training/practice time, and cannot remember the detailed information reviewed in training. After the new systems go live, help-desk calls, or calls to experts or training staff escalate for technical and process-specific information. Super-users, the few who "get it," are overwhelmed or distracted by requests for help. And, of course, changes to screens and fine-tuning of processes continue well after the initial roll-out period. This results in numerous email or hard copy notifications to users and hours of post-training meetings and supervisor support. If the company has an intranet or portal, users spend time searching for relevant, up-to-date information - often not finding it or wasting time searching and processing lengthy documentation to find what they really want quickly - the right "nugget" of information.
Organizational Proficiency of Employees looks like this:
As a consequence, employee adoption becomes a major stumbling block. Employees revert to their comfort zone of their habitual processes. According to CSO Insights' "2006 Sales Performance Optimization Study" of 1275 companies, for some systems and user groups such as CRM and sales forces, only 40% of CRM implementations result in 90% adoption rates. The 2006 Aberdeen survey found that for ERP systems in manufacturing environments, adoption may occur at the system level, but use-of-feature functionality may be under 30%. And, because users have difficulty adopting new software and processes, the application consolidation initiatives yield poor ROI.
Application Consolidation Made Easier
An employee performance support system (EPSS or PSS) makes knowledge of new systems and processes easily available for immediate use. It provides self-service guidance specific to the application, process and job role - all without interrupting the work-flow. With a PSS operating as part of training before go-live, employees are able to reference the system while they operate the new software in a training environment. Most important, a PSS reduces training time and costs by focusing training not on the details, but on concepts and skills. The PSS contains the details and guidance for on-the-job learning after training.
After go-live, a PSS supports users in a self-service mode while they execute the required software and processes. A PSS empowers employees by providing job-specific documentation of new systems and processes in an easy delivery mechanism. If the employees know they can rely on the PSS to help them gain the necessary expertise with just the push of a button, their confidence in the new system and processes increases and so does their adoption. All the while, costs of external support - from calls to the help-desk, to time supervisors and peers spend helping other users - are reduced.
Just as important, a PSS provides authors and experts with an easy way to create, publish, and notify users of up-to-date documentation to keep up with the inevitable changes after roll-out. A PSS excels at "see for yourself" documentation - euphemistically called C4U. The characteristics of a good PSS include the following:
- Context sensitivity to deliver immediate help for the job role, application screen, and job process at hand
- Credible content from a PSS authoring system that can incorporate end-user feedback
- Current content from instant publishing capabilities that can provide employees up-to-date "fingertip knowledge"
- Customized content for controlled variations (synchronized to standards) by country, region, and business unit
- Usability translates into "moment-of-need" end-user support that does not interrupt the workflow or require extensive searching, reading, or scanning
A performance support system is an invaluable component of application consolidation projects. It increases adoption and compliance with new systems and processes by creating and delivering essential documentation to support changes from a new system and process environment. A PSS can reduce training time on details prior to "go-live," while providing the necessary post-implementation support in a self-service manner attractive to employees and beneficial to the bottom-line. It empowers employees and management to execute change during software consolidation.
The ideas expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ITworld.com.