The Role of the CIO and IT Functions in ERP

How CIO helps higher management (CEOs and CFOs) in an organization to implement ERP systems successfully?

An ERP implementation is a major transformation that an organization undertakes. It impacts almost every aspect of the business and the CIO can play a critical part for a successful implementation in the organization by his abilities as mentioned below:

Leadership qualities and Business system thinking

With leadership qualities CIO can plan strategies, structures, design policies and processes, resource allocation to work on high quality deliverables and train them. Build strong relationships with peers, subordinates and understand the business value for the organization. Be flexible enough to adapt their approaches to the needs of the business. It also means they need stronger communication skills. Take a leadership role in promoting change across the organization. Assess business requirements, decide priorities, estimate effort, estimate implementation timeline, think and plan to integrate business, process and technology.

Relationship building

Communicate with senior executives, department heads, customers and suppliers to develop understanding, trust co-operation among users and IT. Articulate one's ideas to range of individuals, groups and cultures using the most effective communication techniques for each group and develop strong co-ordination between different groups to work together. CIO has the ability to serve, motivate and focus a team and foster collaboration among team members.

Architecture planning and Project Investment

CIO is a technically sound person and capable to create a technical platform required to implement the ERP system. A strong technical foundation acts as baseline for future business needs and solutions. CIO helps higher management to understand the true cost of ownership from initial purchasing and licensing through to ongoing support and functionality expansion. Typically, an initial implementation deploys baseline capability to support business operations and to allow an organization to get used to working with the new system. CIO assist higher management to understand the various phases and content of a multiyear plan so they can ensure budgets and resources are available and to manage organizational change.

Technology fixing and Managing Technology Change

CIO has the problem ability to troubleshoot and come up with error free solutions to business problems. CIO help higher management to identify where their business process need to change or can re-use existing technologies or introduce new ones. CIO provides high level infrastructure assessments and a road map to get from organizations current capabilities to those required in the future.

Implementation Strategies & Risk Management

CIO helps higher management to identify different approaches to implementation like “big bang” approach to small incremental releases approach and when it makes sense to retain or decommission existing systems. Early identification of risks and potential pitfalls is critical to ensure that conflicts do not arise between business strategy and execution of the ERP deployment.