The Implementation Of Erp At Tektronix Information Technology Essay

The Implementation Of Erp At Tektronix In info formation engineering science EssayThe Tektronix Inc Global discipline study is a classic fount of a baptismal font where an iconic leader with his squad of motivated leadinghip and sponsors manages alteration by empowering and guiding people. Even though the ERP endure was non an easy task, clear focus, planning and the executive clit from the top meant the propose was executed on a priority and several(a) challenges tackled at the reclaim prison term. In addition, the accomplishment of an ERP normally considered as a biggest information ashes labor ever completed by a corporation (Whitten et al., 2000, Ehie and Madsen, 2005, Vlachopoulou and Manthou, 2006, Hitt et al., 2002). This case study amyotrophic lateral sclerosiso highlights the crucial role that pargonntage soures and clientele wait on reengineering play in the victory of a world-wide brass section. Additionally what is odd is the boffo international instruction execution and rollout pass acrosswise di views and geographies. Lets look at the conf go ford formulas of the ERP rollout at Tektronix oneness by one.The biggest challenge for every such endeavour or a project is the wariness of modification and the associated people prudence for such a extensive transformation project. This is in line with Grabski and sponger (2007) view that slaying of an ERP and associated BPR is non unchallenging. However, Carl Neun knowms to manage this substitute as a true leader who is invited and aw atomic number 18 of challenges of change management (Westerman et al., 1999). flip-flop management is a planned salute to causing people to try for transitions to develop operations (Joyce, 2000). Lets look at the change aspect of the project first and how the transformation from a legacy corpse to spic-and-span times ERP was authoritative-firely run. I am using the framework based of Harvard occupancy Review on Leading through Change. In John P Kotters (1995) article on Why Transformations fail, he highlights the eight steps to achievementful transformation of a organization asEstablishing a sense of spurringNeun being an experienced CFO and an able leader k spic-and-spanborn that in graze for the project to succeed and to link up the organization with an ERP arranging and bring into being an ecosystem where information was available mandatory a sense of urgency to be defecated. He soundless that for Tektronix to move forward and to invest and divest in various occupancyes, it needed to be connected via an information system else the play along was headed for disaster. As Grabski and Leech (2007) express that one approach to overcome this egression is investing in advanced information system, such as go-ahead Resource Planning (ERP) systems, to improve the dividing line competitiveness. Moreover, the dwindling financial mathematical operation was a featureor to create the sense of urgenc y required. The impetus from Roy poochs cultivation to double the printer military control and also the realisation that the printer business would be volume game created the urgency for Tektronix to be ready with an IT system that would support growth.Forming a powerful guiding coalitionNeun and his senior management squad were the powerful guiding coalition that was assembled by the CEO. In the case study it is mentioned that the CEO had given Neun the unlimited authority on capital punishment and the buck stopped with Neun with regards to the ERP instruction execution. Neun consequently selected his long time associate curtsy Vance as the CIO. Along with the business justification from Roy Barker, the team become a powerful guiding coalition and the exclusives worked together as a large(p) a team.Creating a visionCarl Neun knew his end goal was to create an organisation where information was readily available and could be sh atomic number 18d easily. He valued to simp lify the complexity and address change by removing archaic processes and systems. Neuns capital of Kentucky is Orlando analogy was the vision of the project. It highlighted that the business all over the world was equivalent barring language and certain local legal requirements. To support this, Bingi et al. (2002) believed that consolidation through ERP systems allows organizations to share information in a standard format across its various divisions both in the headquarter and in its global offices, with no modifications for language and currency differences needed. Carl precise distinctly expanded his vision toward the carrying out as with three components of a) separ qualification of businesses b) leveraging shared services c) staying plain vanilla as possible, as alterations could lead to budget and time overruns, defective functionality (Sumner, 2000). Standardising the business processes was a bring up component of Carls vision and he was focused to hold in that com plex processes were change to the maximum possible extent.Communicating the visionThe vision was communicated first by getting the business heads such as Barker to back the plan. Once he had raised the concerns opposite managers and senior managers fall in in the exertion. Carl and Vance took the lead to communicate the vision by first explaining their judgements of the simplified architecture of the transformed information system. They also took pain to simplify and turn on for standardisation. The idea of starting with carrying out at CPID and then moving onto some other divisions also gave the opport building blocky for the learnings at one place to be apply to the next one, as noted by Rogers (1995) that the adoption of a new system will follow an S curve by having trailblazer or early adopter organisations taking the lead, followed by early majority, upstart majority adopters, then at last laggards.This approach helped to teach the new behaviours as the guiding coali tion was at the forefront of the change and were atomic number 82 by example.Empowering others to act on the visionThe key component for empowering others to change include a) Getting rid of obstacles to change b) Changing systems and social organisations that seriously undermine change c) Encouraging risk taking and non-traditional ideas, activities and actions.As identified by Ahadi (2006) as the change management effectiveness in the organisation. He asserts that the ability of the organisation to authorize employees, appraise performance, apply reward systems, conduct prepare and education and facilitate colloquy during the process of change is crucial. Carl Neun was empowered by the CEO to take the project through and the empowerment trickled down to the aim of execution. This allowed the CIO and his team to put in extra people, fire people who were acting as hindrance to the slaying. In addition the team structure put in place and the roles ensured that the projects in various geographies rolled up together very easily in a coherent itinerary. The key hindrance to success was lack of financial information and Carl Neun took the objurgate steps to simplify the business processes and reduce disparities across the world and then put in the ERP system, which would change the change. He shuffled the European organisation structure and changed it to commission institution as it would allow for the changes to be made swiftly and removal of the country managers helped the cause set ahead.Planning for a creating Short Term winsThe key to success of the Tektronix ERP implementation was the implementation of the project in vagabonds. The concept of allowing the project to be use in waves did in turn create short-term wins where people and teams could see things were working. Not only did implementing the project in waves allowed for it to be utilize well but also allowed the learning from previous waves to be carried out into further projects. That is allowing what is known as windows of opportunity (Tyre and Orlikowski, 1994) to develop where the users would discover novel and give away ways to carry out their daily work after implementation which could be fed back to the global group in other divisions.Consolidating improvements and producing still more than changeOnce the first wave was successful the leadership team kept moving in to implement the changes across the organisation and across geographies. The credibility that came from implementing the first wave was used to push forward the further waves as the momentum picked up as things started to work. whizz very interesting aspect was the Neun and Vance termination to use consulting support for the implementation of the project. I think it was a great idea that saved the sexual teams and people coordinating the project valuable time that would have been played out learning the nuances of Oracle ERP, as argued by Olsen and Saetre (2007) that the users of an ERP syst em may not skilfuly be familiar with system and thus utilise it. It took the right bellow by allowing the firm that developed an interface amid its manufacturing system and oracle to give it the rights to sell/license the interface.All these successful implementations of the one wave after another gave the momentum to forbear pushing the change further and ensuring that the change agents were constantly at work on the key vision of Frankfurt is Orlando. The learning from every wave was useful and the managers were tender on their feet. They merged improvement to produce change and whatever was not working in a wave was changed and the successful behaviour then became a part of the next wave. For instance when the consulting firm called into help CPID was not helping, they quickly moved onto a combination of Aris, Oracle and other consultants to race up the lost time. The project management team teamed up consultants with Tektronix stave who took the charge of business change while the consultants were given the responsibility to grip with system deals.The case clearly illustrates how the first wave was used to consolidate improvements and produce further change. While the implementation at CPID took a lower-ranking longer than expected, it was considered successful. With this first domestic implementation, Tektronix was able to learn powerful lessons, material body internal skills, and establish practices that helped with all of future implementation waves.Institutionalising new approachesThe new business processes were thoroughly discussed before being implemented in distinguishable decisions and runed to the individual needs of each business unit. The senior team at each business unit understood the needs of the business unit and institutionalised the new approaches to doing business.Large scale project implementation and strategical coincidenceTektronix managed a large-scale project very well condescension lots of previous difficulties with r egards to implementing other IT projects. However this one was a success because of the understanding and the vision of Neun and Vance to ensure that the business processes were simplified, as Hammer (1990) stated that the projects success involving companies investing in IT to develop their business, was ordinarily not bring home the bacon as the IT was only used to expedite existing processes. This process of alignment of the IT scheme and Business schema is key to successful performance for any organisation as highlighted in the MIT90S (Scott Morton, 1991) and Strategic conjunctive Models (SAM) (Henderson and Venkatraman, 1992). SAM suggests that for firms to be competitive, business and information strategies need to aligned (Avison et al., 2004).Henderson and Venkatraman (1992) have clearly demarcated the various domains in their strategic alignment model as shown below in the figure. They have highlighted the importance of internal and external perspectives and how the st rategic fit in the midst of these aspects influences the competitiveness of firms. The key perspective that comes of the SAM is the straightforward relation between Business strategy and Business Infrastructure and IT strategy and IT infrastructure and processes. similarly the cross dimensional alignment between Business Strategy and IT Infrastructure, IT strategy and Business Infrastructure and Processes is key to competitiveness.Fig 1 Strategic Alignment Model (Source Henderson and Venkatraman, 1992)Looking at the case study it becomes apparent that Carl Neun understood the principle of a successful global organisation and his vision clearly brought together the functional integration as well as cross dimensional alignments. He knew that business processes needed to be reengineered first. As Skok and Legge (2002) acknowledge that the success of an ERP implementation is attained with preceding implementation of BPR. Accordingly, the business processes needed to be simplified and then the appropriate IT infrastructure and IT systems and processes to be put in place to get the benefits that Tektronix was seeking from the IT alignment.The strategy of implementing the project in waves was crucial to the success of the project and also the project team structure was the right structure for successful implementation of such a large project. Looking at the project management strategy, I purport that the team structure of Neun being the Project sponsor and Vance spending considerable time on the project in detail was very important. The local implementation was the guiding factor on how to move ahead with the implementation tied(p) though the global implementation had its own challenges as argued by Ross (1999), that oversupply of distinct and independent systems in different parts of the organisation hinder globalization.Program management and giving team members the authority and power to locate on the critical aspects that affected their business the more or less was a novel project management decision. I am particularly impressed by the structure at the local implementation where for each wave on that point were functional experts, change control team, Functional sub team and most importantly the test team. Each wave at the different business units had its peculiarity and different business processes depending on the structure and the need of the individual business units.If we look at the role of Functional experts who were allocated to each wave to ensure that all the essential knowledge and remained with the implementation teams till the last(a) wave. As it has been highlighted that this led to postponement of some initiatives because other initiatives also depended on the availability of the most knowledgeable resources. I believe that this was the right strategy even though that led to delay of initiatives that were to be started the waves that were on were implemented successfully. The project and program management of Neu n and Vance must be commended, as they understood that they could not afford delays in projects. All project management is a delicate balance of the resources, time and cost as sides of a triangle. affect one has impact on the others. So when the projects were facing delays the management did not shy in putting in more consultants on the project. The team structure of leaving the system aspects to external consultants was a good decision as it freed up the business people and Tektronix experts to focus on the business processes and the knowledge aspect rather than having to understand the deep technical aspects or the architectural nuances of the ERP system.Software selection and extending the software functionalityTektronix has already seen the worse do of the not invented here with regards to the software and infrastructure solutions. Neun made the right call with going for the Oracle ERP solution. Neun understood the outsourcing advantage and also the upshot competence of Tek tronix was not at developing software solution. He left the reading of the software and implementation to the right experts. Vance took the right decision with regards to the manufacturing ERP and leaving it in place. Had the manufacturing system been interpreted off and Oracle ERP components used, then it would have been a challenge as the people in manufacturing who had recently undergone a systems change would be swamped by the next change wave and would feel unsettled. I think this was the surmount decision taken to get an external alliance to do the interface between manufacturing ERP and the Oracle ERP.Vance and Neun also did not angry eons of time on deciding the alternatives and which ERP package to select. Such evaluation programs usually cost organisations lots of bills and they highlight trivial differences between the best of the breed packages. The decision taken to go ahead with the oracle implementation, as the team was Neun and Vance had experience of working wi th Oracle and knew that the oracle solution would cater to the needs. The idea of using a small dedicated team that focussed on the capabilities of what Oracle could do and the time they spent upfront on ensuring that Oracle could do what was required for Tektronix shows the discipline and focus from top to stool to get a solution working for the organisation.Another laudable aspect of the software implementation was the plain vanilla approach adopted by the Neun. His understanding that software adaptation and customisation not only costs money and time but also introduces other behaviours that need to regression tried showed a mature thinking with regards to software customisation and development . Instead he focussed on simplifying and adapting the business processes such that they could be realised in the plain vanilla implementation of the software. Only in special and disused cases was customisation allowed and then also where customisation was done, the teams were dedicated to rigorous testing and testing with full load scenarios to ensure that the customisation did not introduce any unintended errors and behaviours. Nevertheless, Markus et als (2000) studies of businesses implementing ERP observed that some adjustments to the system were unnecessary after the users began using it more effectively.The implementation move to using Aris and Oracle consultants once the Tektronix team were sure on what sort of consultants were useful showed the ability of the business and implementation leaders to take the best decisions for the business. They cut out the slack and unnecessary admin overheads related to evaluating consultants, interviewing and employing them. The idea to use consultants on a time and material basis was a smart idea on retentiveness the project on time. Use of low cost resources and contractors kept the project costs in rein and the putting of extra consultants on waves where a delay could occur, shows lettering and commitment to ensure roll outs happen in time and are successful for the projects.Replicating this success to the international level and using the waves methodology is commendable. The project team and execution structure for the international project was exemplary. The idea to do away with the country managers and keep a simple structure as the global structure was exemplary for the global project management. In fact selection of individuals who had long term ties and understanding of the global regions was the right approach taken by the program management team.Also the idea to create a central processing centre in Marlow was an excellent idea towards consolidation. Keeping English as the language of communication for the company was a sensible decision that fast tracked the implementation. Personally I feel that the brilliant job done at customisation for the printing of bills and local communication was hitting the nail on the head in terms of implementation. At the time when the project was implem ented localisation was still picking up as a technology domain and would have taken oft longer than expected.The consolidation of the infrastructure was another bold move which was taken by Vance outsourcing the data centres completely freed the valuable resources and the company could focus on the core work of making the implementation a success. It was exemplary how they managed to soak off the whole thing together as a success. The results were sufficient and when the people quoted that they spent 90% of their time just collecting data and only 10% analysing it. The whole situation changed after then implementation as people spent 90% of their time analysing information which was the core purpose of the implementation was to make information readily available and substitute data into information. The Tektronix team did an excellent job.ConclusionI believe that the job was successful and what Tektronix needs to do for further implementations and such large programs is to keep the spirit and the learnings from the Oracle ERP implementation. One area that they need to tolerate a lot of attention would be the evolving business process framework and pay special attention to the management of Business processes. Going further in time with complex business needs and changing customer requirements and global environments would require Tektronix to adapt the business processes and if Tektronix paid special attention to keeping the business process framework up to date and then use it to drive the software changes it will keep things in control. The best way to do so would be to have process owners and process sponsors who are in charge of maintaining and consulting the stakeholders on process changes and then keep the process architecture of the organisation updated. This will ensure all further projects could experience similar success if the right team structure and leaders are engaged.