On Time Technology Implementation

Bennet Lientz, Kathryn Rea

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781136375538
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Commerce Général

On Time Technology Implementation presents technology implementation guidelines and lessons learned from over 30 years of successful, hands-on project experience.

Part I

Set the Direction

Chapter 1

Introduction

You are involved in implementing technology or a system, You want to be successful. To be successful, you need to complete the implementation on time and within budget. You also want the systems and technology to be used successfully in a business process. This is the definition of success in this book—implementing a successful system and process, and doing so within the constraints of time and money.

INTRODUCTION

Experience has shown that time is often more important than money. Although a manager can throw money at a project, there is only a certain amount of elapsed time. Moreover, there are many stories to indicate that putting more money into a project can only make matters worse. Applying money means adding resources. Adding hardware or software is more easily handled; however, adding more people can be a disaster because they slow the progress of the current staff as they learn what is going on. They may also question what has already been done. Time marches on and the work gets further behind. In one instance, a manager wanted to end an implementation project. It was politically impossible to do it, but it had to be done because the business had changed and the need for the system evaporated. What to do? It was recommended that the manager add people. The project died in less than 1 month. This is an extreme example, but it reinforces the point. Negotiating for more time makes sense; trying to get more money often makes less sense.

To provide implementation guidelines, trends in both business and technology need to be considered. Next, some of the methods of the past can be viewed in light of current and future trends. This leads to the proven approach that has worked in more than 50 organizations around the world.

BUSINESS DIRECTION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

It is a cliché to say that business depends on technology more today than ever before. Thus, we examine some aspects of the interdependence between the business and systems and technology. In the early years of computer technology, business received benefits by reducing the extent of clerical and support personnel required to perform routine tasks. Businesspeople often viewed technology at this stage as a necessary, but largely unknown and mysterious, expense. With the arrival of stand-alone PCs, the mystery disappeared, along with a lot of money. The problem was that it was very difficult to justify the hardware and support costs of stand-alone PCs for many employees. Data were reentered from mainframe and minicomputer reports into PCs. People would show up at meetings with contradictory data that they had entered. In one case, it was recommended to a distribution firm that almost all stand-alone computers be confiscated and warehoused. When this occurred, productivity immediately improved and costs were reduced—a quick payoff achieved by reducing technology.

The trend was reversed with the development of local and wide area networking and, especially, with the Internet. Employees could perform online transactions through client-server systems. Data were made available for analysis through database management systems, and information could be shared among staff. The Internet and the World Wide Web produced even more dramatic change. First, widespread remote operations could be inexpensively linked with headquarters units. Second, customers and suppliers could be integrated. The use of electronic commerce and its predecessor, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), has increased dramatically.

What does this add up to? It translates into the realization of the dependence of business on technology. It also raises the performance bar in terms of what must be accomplished by systems and technology. The standards have been raised. The system or technology not only must work, but also must mesh with the business and produce concrete results. Firms are also more aware of disaster stories and the problems with poor or faulty implementation. Two large discount chains implemented the same technology over a period of years—satellite communications with stores, point of sale (POS), scanning of bar coding, EDI, shipping container marking, dynamic inventory, and so on. In both cases, the systems worked. However, in one there was tremendous business success. In the other, it was a disaster. Why the difference? Because the successful firm implemented tight integration between the business processes and technology. The processes were changed to take advantage of the technology. In the other firm, the processes remained the same. The first firm made more money, had the flexibility to expand faster and cheaper, managed inventory more tightly, and could target specific market segments. The second firm received little benefit. The lessons learned here are that technology implementation is too important to be treated as a technical project and, to gain benefits processes and systems must be integrated.

BUSINESS PROCESSES AND TECHNOLOGY

Businesses depend on their critical business processes. A business process is a set of interrelated activities that are performed to process specific work in the business. Payroll, marketing, warehousing, and accounting are all business processes. Organizations make or lose money depending on their processes. This was recognized in ancient Rome where military and civil work was systematically reduced to formal procedures. Business processes were created and expanded throughout the Renaissance and during the Industrial Age, with the railroads and modem logistics. Industrial engineering and “efficiency experts” addressed steps in business processes in excruciating detail (e.g., hand movements in performing work). From the 1950s to the 1970s, business was preoccupied with expansion and other activities, and viewed computers and technology as support to business processes. The clumsy technology could in no way restructure the business process; it could only replace some steps.

This changed with online systems in the 1980s. Transaction-based systems changed the way people did their work. From administrative online systems to automated teller machines (ATMs) to voice response systems, business processes changed with the technology. The trend has continued with client-server and intranet/Internet systems. Currently, most critical business processes in a company are tightly connected to systems. In addition, it is hard to think of systems that do not support business processes. Yet, where do things go wrong? It is a matter of degree. If you spend money, time, and resources on critical business processes, then you will be more successful. However, if resources are drained to support minor maintenance and enhancement changes that have little or no strategic impact, both money and time are wasted. The promise of technology goes unmet.

Another major theme is that business processes such as technology evolve. As time goes by, new situations arise. If the current process cannot handle them, then people may create new, little business processes on the side. These are called shadow systems. They may be procedures or PC systems that are not part of the formal process. Shadow systems act to undermine the integrity of the process. The situation worsens when there is turnover of business staff and the new staff is not properly trained in the new process. New employees are told to take their past experience and knowledge and just plunge in. And you wonder why processes can deteriorate? A good combination of technology and process reinforce each other and stave off, or at least delay, decay and rot.

Failure can occur if a firm adopts new technology too soon. An example is a retail firm that adopted their own coding system for their merchandise, prior to the development of bar coding. When bar coding became popular, the firm had to use both the internal code and the bar code. The systems complexity overwhelmed the business process, and inventory controls collapsed. Some stores had excessive merchandise; others had severe shortages of the same goods. However, if you adopt technology too late, you can lose in competition. Timing is essential.

TECHNOLOGY AND SOFTWARE TOOL TRENDS

People think of technology and its use as constantly improving and expanding. However, this is not necessarily true. Much of new technology has to be hyped as “products in search of problems to solve.” The electric light bulb was that way in the 1800s. It took years to for Thomas Edison to convince people that electric lights were a good idea. Do you realize today that almost one half of the world’s population has never used an electric light? Getting technology adopted is often more of a marketing problem than a technical problem.

Technology and, in particular, software have experienced positive trends that relate to business and business processes. These include the following:

• Improved price performance and reliability. You have heard about this for years. However the changes are now more integrated, occur faster, and have a greater impact on society and individuals. Look at the sharp rise in tools that use the Internet for voice communications and faxing.

• Greater standardization. With the earlier dominance of several hardware firms and now with several software firms (one in particular), there is much more standardization than was previously the case. What does standardization mean? It means that you can more easily implement systems and have less maintenance later.

• Integration and easier interfaces. This relates to standards in that the rise of ODBC, OLE, and ActiveX have all supported simpler interfaces and integration among systems. Without this there would be a need for much more custom programming and development to establish and support interfaces.

• Reduced learning curve for pro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I: Set the Direction
• Part II: Software Development
• Part III: Software Packages
• Part IV: Knowledge Management
• Part V: Electronic Commerce and Implementation Issues
• Index