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Been There, Done That…

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DQI Bureau
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The sales guy is all excited about the order he has bagged. He shoots off

e-mails to virtually everyone on the floor and a meeting is hurriedly summoned.

Unrealistic deadlines are set and ambitiously agreed to. Still in high spirits,

he zooms off to his next coup in hard sell, while the operational team is left

holding the baby.

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The team realizes that it would be best to rethink the whole project.

"But there’s a commitment to clients, Mr Hard-sell has got his key result

areas (KRAs) to meet and we’ve got ours." So, a race against time.

Even as India Inc digitizes at a rapid pace, enterprises across industries as

diverse as automobiles and confectionery are proudly adding

"IT-enabled" to their list of "Been there…done that." But

behind nearly every success story that adorns corporate brochures lies a saga of

unrealistic expectation, user frustration and functional disaster compounded by

delays in the deployment cycle.

Rajat Mathur, general manager, e-Commerce, Wipro Infotech, points out that

the most critical issue is to ensure an effective handover from the

sales/pre-sales team to the project delivery team. "This is neglected as

sales and pre-sales teams have a tendency to over-commit and have little

knowledge of the implementation of a feature in the manner desired by the

customer," says Mathur.

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"Not surprisingly, research shows that only 9% of projects undertaken by

large companies in the US are on time, on budget," says N Rajashree, senior

manager, process and quality at Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS). The

scenario is not too different in India.

What could be wrong?

Apart from logistics and technical issues, people management seems to be the

key problem area. "The complexity of team communication increases with its

size," says Rajashree. "A five-person team has 120 possible

communication combinations. A 10-person project has 362,880. When the team is

dispersed over multiple geographic sites and time zones, a single communication

gap can lead to serious delays."

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Then there is user resistance to process change. BG Srinivas, head for

enterprise solutions at Infosys Technologies, believes that users are naturally

reluctant to modify any of their activities and depending on the position of the

person in the organizational hierarchy, it could delay implementation.

"There are also people who, for vested interests, could sabotage the

project’s completion," says Srinivas.

Vrinda Ballal, who heads the project office and software quality assurance

division at Opus Software, Pune, supplements these factors. "Insufficient

knowledge of the application, lack of clarity on the role to be played by

various people from the enterprise and resistance to adopt to standard

processes..."

Dr Sujit Banerjee, country manager, strategic outsourcing, IBM India, points

out that an implementation involves consolidation, which could result in issues

of job redundancy as well as redeployment of people.

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SAP consulting director Avijit Biswas adds that executive direction, quality

of team, level of training, culture of decision-making and, of course,

willingness to and readiness for change are the factors that drive the timeline

during the blueprinting phase.

On the technical front, a wrongly selected enterprise application interface

and unexpected bugs could send timelines into a tailspin. "Potential

interfaces should be identified right away and data definition and process

firmed up early in the implementation," says Alok Tandon, director - sales

and marketing, Baan Info Systems India.

CP Gurnani, COO, HPS (HCL Perot), cites the case of a multinational consumer

durable company in which the ERP project was initiated in the month of October

and the go-live was planned for April the following year. "Mid-way through

the project, the company realized that March-June is the peak business period

and it could not afford to have any business disruptions due to ERP going live.

The project, therefore, had to be stalled," recalls Gurnani, highlighting

the importance of meticulous planning and taking into account all factors.

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What can be done?

Best Man In: Before you entrust the functioning of your

business to an outside agency, make sure you verify the credentials of your

implementation partner. The management should thoroughly assess the product

features and its suitability to organization business processes and future

needs. "It is worthwhile getting in a few key business domain-owners

trained in ERP product features to evaluate the ERP product capabilities before

taking a leap," cautions Jobcurry CEO Rajan Bhatnagar.

"Also, make sure that you bring in people with knowledge

of both processes and applications," says Avijit Biswas of SAP.

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Storyboard: Meticulous planning is crucial to a project.

Before you begin, get the following down on paper–the purpose of the project,

accurate user expectations, an implementation plan, a communication plan,

processes to address issues and risks, review meeting schedule, a training plan,

testing and post-production plan and internal publicity, as well as strategy for

showcasing of the project.

Atul Takle, V-P for corporate communications at TCS,

advocates close evaluation of the product and defining the gap strategy. "A

commitment from partners/vendors to ensure the success of the project

helps," he says. The management should be able to visualize the application

and its infrastructure architecture. The focus should be on simplicity at the

user-end while relegating the complex features to the back-end.

"It is important to fall back on an architecture which

is heterogeneous, does not create islands or promote religions of technology,

delivers speed of application deployment and usage, predictable availability and

helps give IT sanity with universal mobility," says Anil Menon, director

for business development at Citrix Systems India. Menon stresses that security

is paramount, as is the need to use the Internet as the critical infrastructure

while planning to build a framework to co-exist with legacy infrastructure and

future Web services framework.

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Infrastructure: Preparing the production environment is an

important aspect of planning for deployment. This includes hardware, network,

the installation plan, architecture, resources and processes.

Hilal Ishar Khan, manager for IT at Honda Siel, urges

enterprises to prepare a checklist before the arrival of the implementation

partner. "The implementation partner should give a clear idea about the

number of PCs, peripherals, manpower and external infrastructure required for

the project. Preparing advance schedules based on this will iron out all

problems related to logistics," says Khan.

Byte by Byte: Phased implementation in small cycles of

modules works better than a big-bang approach, as it reduces risk and improves

the flow of funds. "Deliver interim solutions to get users’ buy-in,"

quips Mphasis COO Ramesh Padmanabhan.

People can actually learn from mistakes made in the first

phase, reshuffle the team if required, deploy resources as per current needs as

well as assess and control the project more easily. "The user community

always wants to see some quick successes. Long project life-cycles may bring

down the enthusiasm in project teams," says Rajavel Sekaran, associate

director, Cambridge Technology Partners, India (a 100% subisidiary of Novell

Inc). The head of solution architects at Mastek, PK Mallik, says enterprises

should adopt a spiral methodology to deliver in smaller bits and go for a

product-based solution to reduce variations.

Feasibility Check: Projects are often driven by

over-ambition. Fantastic features added to the blueprint without considering

whether it is possible to implement these.

Oracle India’s Somesh Bhagat cites the case of a CRM

implementation gone awry. "The CRM application was not Internet-enabled and

needed time-consuming client updates. There were new versions all the time. It

took so long to update client software and so frequently that users lost

interest. Many of them were on different versions as the updates could not keep

pace with he changes," recalls Bhagat. The lesson-using Internet-based

deployment, as against client server implementation, saves time.

Dr NJ Rajaram, research and development head of Aptech’s

training and education division, describes another scenario where the primary

reason for delay was the lack of IT architecture. "Architecture must be

able to minimize integration costs. Framing architectures that rely on

middleware supporting XML, SOAP (simple object access protocol), and UDDI

(universal description, discovery, and integration) could have reduced the

deployment cycle,’’ says Rajaram.

No Scope Creep? The scope of the project is laid out. Then,

you have customers demanding additional functionaly. That throws schedules off

gear. "Strict monitoring is essential to avoid scope creep. Let additional

requirements be taken up in subsequent phase," says Rajan Bhatnagar of

Jobcurry. The best way to manage scope is to implement basic functionalities

first before trying complex scenarios."Avoid customisation if it can be met

through work arounds," says Yash Nagpal, MD, Navision India. After all, the

more the customization, more the time to implement. Scope Creep can be avoided

through proper documentation and sign off.

No Teary Good Byes: Sign-offs on ‘To-Be’ processes are a

must. "Quick sign-offs between user champions and product managers for

various modules will ensure that the project sticks to the schedule. Lay down a

clear-cut exit criteria," says Rajat Mathur of Wipro.

Blessed by the Big Boss? Deploying an enterprise application

is often seen as an ‘IT project’ to be handled by the IT department with no

active support from the business drivers in the organisation. "Senior

management commitment is an absolute must for the success of a project,"

says Mphasis COO Ramesh Padmanabhan.

Opus Software’s Vrinda Ballal’s strategy is to include

influential people in the implementation team. "A regular steering

committee with top management involvement ensures that the drive is

maintained," she says.

IBM country manager Sujit Banerjee too reiterates the

importance of management push in ensuring speedy implementation.

Gourmet’s Delight: The proof of the pudding, no doubt, lies

in the eating. Implementing a technically-superior application that complicates

the life of its users is the worst business decision a company can make. Users

should be told that the new system will make business easier but not solve all

their problems. They should be trained to understand the problems in

implementing the application. "Drive out fears by holding one-to-one

sessions. Define some short-term benefits. Offer incentives to people who make

effective use of the application. Try to understand the internal politics which

can make the whole exercise futile," says Ballal. She suggests identifying

dedicated user champions who will drive hard and take the whole implementation

to its logical end.

The New Champions: A dedicated, full-time cross-functional

team that leads the process should be created. "Allocate responsibilities,

create teams and functional heads to get the project rolling. Commitment is the

key," says Navision’s Yash Nagpal.

Assembling the appropriate team of internal and external

resources is of prime importance. "Begin by finding experienced individuals

across departments who have participated in design and implementation of many

different types of systems. Integrate and model the enterprise software to fit

your business processes," says Arvind Pandey, Persistent Systems.

Once the team is assembled, extensive training programs need

to be conducted. "The key at such times will be the knowledge of what’s

possible, what’s really needed and the ability to question and negotiate hard,

all along driving the process towards the desired corporate goal," says

Avijit Biswas of SAP.

The Big Picture: Analyze your business needs by looking at

the complete picture and identifying the right solution and partners for

achieving your goals. "Companies need to understand that in a very near

future, they will need to have the facility to extend their enterprise systems

to their customers, suppliers and business partners and in some way or the other

they will be using the Internet. It is imperative that they have a definite plan

and scope to for an open, scalable system architecture, which can be easily

extended and integrated with other systems," says Parimal Chanchani,

director, Uberall Solutions India.

How will a shorter deployment cycle help?

The biggest advantage of an efficiently deployed enterprise application would

be a quick return on investment. Atul Takle of TCS says shorter deployment

cycles translate into cost benefits on various fronts. "The impact on

implementation, transition, support as well as operational costs (like inventory

savings) is evident. Apart from that, it facilitates acceptance of the system by

the users and a belief that it work," he adds.

"For the management, it means lower cost of ownership, increased

productivity, lower support costs and faster time to market. For users, it is

all about mobility, simplicity and ease of use, and who doesn’t want

that," questions Anil Menon of Citrix Systems India.

Wipro’s Rajat Mathur sums it up for us quite neatly–"Any change is

always best done when done quickly and effectively. Give no chance to the user

to change his mind!"

Manjiri Kalghatgi in New Delhi

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