Comments by "Hassan Maje" (@hassanmaje5849) on "Digital Transformation with Eric Kimberling" channel.

These systems have some accounting features, controls, concepts...poorly or wrongly designed. The Bank Reconciliation feature for example is a mess in Odoo! A true accounting expert, system critic would know.
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ERP projects can be bit of a lucky dip situation. A bit like poker. You have to put in the money to see the next card. A Chicken and egg situation. Some of my thoughts from my experience: What's the difference between selecting a software vendor vs. a software consultant? Who does what? What are the roles and expectations for each? If one isn't careful, a software consultant can do anything, even things you don't need, bit like 'selling snow to the Eskimos.' Often, the client does the heavy lifting—defining their needs and goals—while the consultant merely articulates those needs without real industry knowledge. Then he hand-holds the client for 'window shopping' and leaving them to choose what they think is the best fit. Isn't this a missed opportunity for real guidance? To me true value is where a knowledgeable and experienced consultant assesses and conducts a thorough review, understands the needs, the required changes, the best practices, etc and then advises.
3
If I were to ask the following how would it be addressed? As an end user or HOD or staff, or project team member I do a million and one things and I have a million and one cases, situations, scenarios etc and currently I am operating in a particular way, doing things in a certain way, checking and verifying things in a certain way, making enquiries and generating reports in a certain way, responding to people in a certain way, and interacting with people, processes, functions , features in the systems in a certain way. Question: How will the new system (after the software solutions have been signed off from day zero or day one of the implementation when the ”Vendors”, ”Consultants” walk in, come on the table and start their work) impact how I do things? How differently will I do things in the new system? How and where will I find my old data and information on the new system? How will I do things differently right at the wire level - at the level of every mouse click, keystroke, pen tick..? There are inevitably a million and one nuances and questions the end user would have. Training is one thing but how one uses the system in everyday situations is quite another. UAT, although very important, does not address the above concerns. It's like forcing a square peg in a round hole. How is the above answered then? Who answers it (the end user (go figure), the HOD, the Vendor, the Consultants..)? When is it answered - at product selection phase, or at implementation phase after sign-off? Or is it that if the Digital Transformation project is sound the above gets resolved well before the start up or live date? These are some of the questions and concerns I'd had in the past.
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Are there consultants who are industry experts who can help organisations at the pre-implementation phase? The irony with organisations is that ERP or digital transformation is not an every day occurrence and most have no clue where to start. They operate with legacy, disjointed, disparate systems and processes based on knowledge and practice built over the years. All this and other factors and pain points then forces them to consider digital transformation or ERP system. The question then remains: what is the correct way of doing things or best practice. It becomes tough if organisations cannot wrap their heads round or have problem conceptualising, defining.. This is where I feel experts should come in and assess the organisation processes, systems, business and functional needs, etc from strategic to operational levels and advise on ERP or other apt solutions.
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In my experience my view is that, to address the above, a consultant should be the one who has ground level knowledge of the industry and business and the ERP system being rolled out. He should be experienced and should know how things tick and fit. He'd bring himself in with his team, the best practices, the template or footprint that is tried and tested in similar organisations. And he should bring all on the table to buy-in once it is established that the system being rolled out shall meet the needs. I would not hire a consultant to just help an organisation with window shopping for an ERP system!
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What if a senior tenured employee who has thrived over broken systems and processes simply through heroics, tribal knowledge and by undertaking smaller digital transformations that have been simple to use, easy to learn and which he has become champion at and has spearheaded, is now left at the prospect of major ERP rollout that he feels is going awry? And add to that the worry that he can't properly learn or understand the ERP and the impact it may have or its consequences in his (Accounting/Finance) department he is the head of. Add to that the ambiguity on the roles, processes or vision, assuming that those have even been provided. Add to that emerging evidence of rushed rollout, lack of clarity and things messing up (configuration issues, missing functionality, wrong data mapping, data migration issues, data entry errors, errors in fixing errors, data integrity and system control issues, unreconciled items, lack of quality control, etc). And add to that the worry whether the employee will be valued or be competent at any new roles. All these issues can cause ambiguity, stress and this often results in a fall out and friction with project core teams, project sponsors, executives, etc ultimately resulting in his roles chopped and changed after he becomes stranded in the current role. I have seen this happen. How do you reassure and address this? I think the root cause would be the project inception/definition stage, ERP selection level, internal quality issues, etc
1
As a non-technical individual involved in transitioning a small organization to cloud-based solutions, I'd like to offer my perspective based on my own experience without divulging into details. In my case, opting for cloud-based solutions proved to be more cost-effective compared to on-premise alternatives. My strategic approach focused on leveraging the cloud to enhance efficiency, compliance, and accessibility while minimizing risk and ensuring business continuity. By migrating the operations to the cloud, we avoided substantial upfront investments in hardware, software licenses, infrastructure setup, managed IT services and ongoing maintenance that would have been required for on-premise systems. Furthermore, the inherent advantages of cloud computing, such as seamless collaboration, concurrent and anytime, anywhere access, and reduced reliance on physical infrastructure, contributed to cost savings and operational efficiencies. When comparing the cloud and on-premise systems I found that the benefits and cost savings in the former outweighed in the latter. Of course, I recognized certain trade-offs, such as the loss of ownership of software and databases, the inability to be in control and maintain native backups, and the loss of other capabilities, such as maintaining live, test, and production databases as would be possible in an ERP environment. While cloud was the best fit and most cost-effective option for this organization, it's possible that as it grows and needs evolve, the equation may change in future.
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One size fits all may not work for all these 9 diverse agencies with diversity in processes, data, systems needs, workflows etc.. What works for one or in one area may be a square peg elsewhere or to another agency..A very broad project. I understand your points. Well put out!
1
Shared services model should be complimented by elimination of redundancies, duplications, inefficiencies and this is where people, processes and technology solution plays big part otherwise the HR section fulfilling the shared services model would merely just be overworked, cramped doing their work. Of course there are also other considerations that organisations take into account and put into effect such as changing the business models, establishing separate service companies, having SLAs or management agreements in place...once it is determined that shared service model is the chosen path of operation.
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If, on go-live day and all along the project, some of my questions are and have been: – How does the new system work? – I used to do A, B, C, D.. in the old system, how do I do that now? – The old system had certain features and functionalities— does the new one have them, and how do I use them? – Data migration and mapping concerns and questions...evident in data migration errors, data migrated wrongly, misunderstandings in what data from the old system means in the new system... and also evident in inability to invoice, process transactions, etc resulting in stopped work, disruption for a month post start up date? With the above concerns and issues I think something is off. Are these signs of poor change management, lack of system readiness, absence of a competent ERP consultant, flawed project execution — or all of the above?
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As a non-technical individual involved in transitioning a small organization to cloud-based solutions, I'd like to offer my perspective based on my own experience without divulging into details. In my case, opting for cloud-based solutions proved to be more cost-effective compared to on-premise alternatives. My strategic approach focused on leveraging the cloud to enhance efficiency, compliance, and accessibility while minimizing risk and ensuring business continuity. By migrating the operations to the cloud, we avoided substantial upfront investments in hardware, software licenses, infrastructure setup, managed IT services and ongoing maintenance that would have been required for on-premise systems. Furthermore, the inherent advantages of cloud computing, such as seamless collaboration, concurrent and anytime, anywhere access, and reduced reliance on physical infrastructure, contributed to cost savings and operational efficiencies. When comparing the cloud and on-premise systems I found that the benefits and cost savings in the former outweighed in the latter. Of course, I recognized certain trade-offs, such as the loss of ownership of software and databases, the inability to maintain native backups, and the loss of other capabilities, such as maintaining live, test, and production databases as would be possible in an ERP environment. While cloud was the most cost-effective option for this organization it's possible that as it grows and needs evolve, the equation may change in future.
1