It’s been a while since we’ve been haggling with the Oracle implementation in our firm. And the views of everyone around as well as myself are quite varied. But it would be fun to surmise all the feelings into one post.
As a background I’d like to note that we’re the only (read again: the only) organization to have implemented Oracle 12.x version of the ERP software. Now I don’t know how big a deal that is, but since I got a mail from the Central IT dept., I reckon its worth a note! Alright. Enough chit chat. Lets get to the whole analysis thingy.
One of the first things that strikes me, is that essentially any ERP solutions software is supposed to be built around a business model, so that it can enhance the efficiency of business and enable free flow of information and the usual yada yada. But more often than not, it so happens that the business unit starts molding itself around the ERP software. Job responsibilities change, work load shifts from one department to the other; and that inevitably leads to resistance. People who loathe excel sheets and their short comings would prefer sticking to the long list of rows and columns instead of getting the responsibility to enter additional data which either they didn’t use to handle earlier or is inaccessible to them.
And sadly when most Central IT Teams responsible for implementing Oracle announce the changes in the job profile, they’re badgered left and right. “Why should buying dept. define in what size of boxes will the final product be shipped? That’s the job of the Shipping Department!”… “Why should we go to the Finance people to create a Supplier? Isn’t Supplier maintenance a job of a Buyer?”
And the only answer that the IT team can give out is that ‘these are the best industry practices and that’s why we follow them’. Well according to me, what might be the best for the industry might not be the best for my organization! But who listens to me anyways.!
The second problem I see is the cold-war sort of situation between the Central IT team (who implements Oracle) and the other office users. The IT team, a bunch of enthu chaps that they are try to boost up people around by holding meetings and praising how Oracle will change their lives as well as the company’s.
This is one of the times I feel Change Management becomes so crucial. And the reason is simple. Shifting from one style of working to the other will always face resistance. Moreover, in the previous style of working, there always used to be a human being who could be held responsible for any goof-up. But here, if the system goofs-up sadly you cant just go to any desk and start blaming any person for not finishing his/her work.
On the other hand, Orcale does prevent the loss of important information. Call it intellectual property protection or something like that. But essentially what it means to say is that if tomorrow I stand up and say bye-bye to the company, it doesn’t mean that all the supplier level relationships in terms of pricing and other conditions also go out of the window. The new guy who comes in has complete access to the deals I struck and can exploit them for future references. Pretty dainty I would say.
Also, I think what Oracle would (hopefully) do best, is that it’ll give clean data, scrapped off all the anomalies across departments which will be updated faster and will be far more accurate than what it has been till now.
I’m just waiting for things to fall in place and Oracle to start pouring in data. Once that happens, people will immediately transform from self-interested midgets to strategic analysts and all that management enhanced jargons.
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