Business Case for OCM

[Former Member]

I am interested to see if anyone has any content they are able to share around the business case for OCM presented in a manner that has managers understand what the OCM game is about and why it is important to fund it and support it.

[Former Member]

Our firm has incorporated OCM in our SAP/BPC delivery methodology and it has met with a very warm acceptance by our clients. Our OCM material has been maturing for over a decade, but is customized for each client, and clearly is a competitive advantage for us. So we are more than a bit hesitant to publish it to an open forum. I've been involved with OCM related work since 1991 and agree with many of the commentaries above regarding the 'critical' deal-breaking nature of well managed OC. I have a goofy mantra I use to describe this reality... "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't necessarily make him do the backstroke."

I have been saying for a long time that IT systems work is the technological equivalent of human organ transplant surgery. I use this analogy with our clients and it seems to help everyone get it intellectually. Just think of the key issue surrounding organ transplants and how that can be applied to our work. Compatibility of tissue, rejection, anti-rejection medication, severing of vital connections and reconnecting them (nerves, muscles, vessels, etc.). All the preparation that goes into it it (technically and emotionally).

Isnt' it interesting that when we introduce a new system that "replaces" an old one, the company, just like the human body, sends out corporate white blood cells to kill the foreign object even though its very life depends upon the survival of that object? So what do we do? We administer anti-rejection medication IN ADVANCE of the operation and after to ensure that NATURAL reaction does not happen. We have to take equivalent measures when we introduce new systems. The OCM issue then is to define what equals anti-rejection medication in a corporate envivronment. Our OCM discipline defines that and engages the organization in creating it and administering it to itself so it can optimize its success.

As for getting it in terms of the bottom line, y'all are right--that is a little tough for most of us to document, but you'd have to have been hiding under a rock and not read any relevant magazine, blog, or whitepaper for the past 15+ year to be so ignorant of this histoical fact. The IT landscape is littered with the dead or battered bodies of leaders and followers who have launched their ships unprepared to deal with this monster.

Our OCM kick-off Workshop seems to create in the minds of our clients a clear and undeniable gap between what they'd get if they don't take care of these matters.

Sorry to go so long on this, but it's one of my favorite topics as you can tell. Hope this is useful in some small way.

[marilyn_pratt]

Really loved your graphic analogy. Your post could easily be expanded into a blog entry for further viability and readership.

Welcome to BPX, Mark.

Marilyn

SAP community evangelist

[Former Member]

A perfect story for change management's importance: one could not ask for anything more

[Nestle's ERP Odyssey|http://www.cio.com/article/31066/Nestle_s_Enterprise_Resource_Planning_ERP_Odyssey/]

Excerpt:(from Page 2 of the article)

Regardless of the project’s exact ROI, the lessons learned are real. The primary lesson Dunn says she has taken away from the project is this: No major software implementation is really about the software. It’s about change management. "If you weren’t concerned with how the business ran, you could probably [install the ERP software] in 18 to 24 months," she says. Then "you would probably be in the unemployment line in 19 to 25 months."

NestlŽ learned the hard way that an enterprisewide rollout involves much more than simply installing software. "When you move to SAP, you are changing the way people work," Dunn says. "You are challenging their principles, their beliefs and the way they have done things for many, many years."

I hope this anecdote is perfect to drive home the message .

-sudhir.

[Former Member]

Very well said!

Participating in a recent SAP OCM Workshop we discussed helpful ways to raise the understanding of the role that change management plays within the business case for change. We looked at four levels or scales of enterprise system changes as they relate to the risk and benefit to the business. Each level represents a more complex business case and suggests an increasing need for clarity of case and ability to translate it's benefits to the business.

Transformation

Cross-functional Reengineering / Integration

Process Standardization / Enhancement

Legacy Substitution

[marilyn_pratt]

Would be great if you could expand that learning somewhere that we could feature on the [OCM|https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/bpx-ocm] homepage. I would suggest using the mechanism of blogging or perhaps creating a wiki page under the [BPX wiki space|https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BPX]

Mary or anyone else up to the challenge. This would provide some very useful materials for our audience, I imagine.

Thanks for getting this started Mary!

[Former Member]

Andrew,

The following statement shows why there is a strong case as to why all major SAP implementations should include a full OCM program in their Project Plan:

Consulting & Benchmarking Partners show that 62% of the top issues that Organizations face during Enterprise Resource Planning are people related. The areas impacted are listed as follows:

Change Management = 16%

Internal Staff Adequacy = 8%

Project Team = 7%

Training = 7%

Prioritization/Resource Allocation = 6%

Top Management Support = 6%

Consultants = 5%

Ownership = 5%

Ownership (of benefits to others) = 4%

Discipline = 2%

In order to deal with these issues throughout a project, a PMO team should conclude that they will require a strong Change Management Plan and team.

John Davis

[Former Member]

Hi Andrew,

I think the following links will help you....

http://204.154.71.138/data/8798/3/OCM-Toolkit-Solution-Brief.pdf

http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/063/change.html

http://www.solutionmatrix.com/

http://www.businessmanagementdirectory.com/business-management.html

Regards

Harish

[Former Member]

I think this is discussed in another topic in this forum titled Business Mantras for Success in Future....

by Sridhar Sundaram.

It has been discussed by 2 or 3 senior forum members here. You might get some help here.

Ultimately you have to show the business/managers the bottom line. Most managers cant understand anything but bottom line Profit & Loss numbers. I think the bottom line is the most important. If we can talk to the business/managers in their language of bottom line we can get the message across.

As far as any material to share, I dont have any. You might find some good information at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_management

They have listed a few reference books here that talk about the importance of Change Management at the above site.

I am sure you can put together a good document to make a business case with all the information available.

Hope this helps.

Good Luck.

M.

[Former Member]

Dear Andrew,

Thease points may be useful to you

1) Fundamental lack of understanding of the key role that Business Change Management plays in determining a successful SAP implementation project.

2) Misrepresenting the operational impact to an organisation that the system brings once it has gone live (ie training of end users-key users, business impact of end to end process chains ) and underestimating the amount of organisational change that typically an SAP implementation brings. (organisational alignment of newly created business roles for example)

3) As you also allude to, the quality of resources deployed to the area or the lack of business leadership assigned to the area may be inappropriate "it is a soft subject and is therefore highly flexible and can be done by anyone" or misaligned with the degree of organisational transformation being effected

4) Differences in methodology approach to ERP implementations. Many of the major SAP implementation partners consider themselves both organisational change management experts and SAP implementation experts. They believe that their way is the best way based on "industry best practice and typically sell their value add as additional skills, capability or methodology around perceived ASAP shortcomings.

5) Supporting business cases that just don’t reflect the reality of the business transformation that needs to occur to realise the benefits. Where are the real savings coming from, how do we save costs when implementing the project, what was the originally agreed scope?

Lastly its the most difficult part of the implementation, paradoxically this is more of a reason to follow a standard methodology however as we all know, ASAP is just a suggested methodology. Its not mandatory so people have the option of not following it or they just can't find it hidden amongst Solution Manager toolset.

I guess its symptomatic of the problem that the Business Change Management forum has not yet attracted a large following, everyone seems to be interested in the tools or general BPX forum. Perhaps we need to do a marketing job on the subject to raise the profile!

Prem