The customer's challenge
The customer's challenge
The company, which had about 10,000 employees when the project was to begin, acquired a competitor with 6,000 employees. Suddenly, the strategic decision to change the old ERP system to a common one became a much bigger and more complex issue. Two different groups were to be merged, but obviously had different governance, processes and business rules.
System before/after
System before/after
The acquiring company had largely Visma PX in the Nordic region and a little mixed in its other European operations. The acquired company had chosen a few years earlier to integrate all its 30 countries into Maconomy. The decision that was now on the table was to move everyone to the ERP system Maconomy or IFS, to the HR system SuccessFactors and to the CRM system Salesforce or Lime.
Solution
Solution
The client's management chose to follow our recommendation to develop a common operational model for the management team to decide on. This was not without challenges because the operational model goes to the heart of how the business should work. But must be done to create stability for a future system change. The operational model becomes a base plate for a system configuration.
Result
Result
After a number of iterations, and some power play between divisional managers and functional managers, we came out the other side in one piece with an agreed operational model that the future business system project could use as a starting point.
Conclusions
Conclusions
Change management starts at the top, and getting the management team to agree on how a company should operate is crucial to getting a major project like changing the ERP system for 16,000 employees off to a good start. Part of the success is that the company's CFO was very well informed and committed to pushing the decisions through the management team. When you change most administrative processes in a company, it is not an "IT project".
We carry out at least 20 different assignments in parallel, which means that our experience bank is developing at a rapid pace. To give you inspiration for projects that can be similar to your current challenges, we share here what we have learnt from others that will benefit you in a future assignment.
What we have done
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Customer case4 min reading timeThe construction group replaced its outdated ERP to harmonise its system landscape, increase internal efficiency and strengthen its project business
The client, a group with several project-oriented organisations operating in various parts of the civil engineering industry, had for some time felt that the current system landscape did not support the projects to the extent that they... -
Customer case2 min reading timeA market leader in a global petrol and retail group that needed to streamline its supply chain.
During the course of the project, a number of challenges were identified that prevented them from achieving the change desired by the category managers in the Swedish organisation. Their culture, team spirit... -
Customer case1 min reading timeThe electric boat company that wanted to switch to serial production
The company was still a venture capital-funded development company where each new product delivered to the customer had its own technical specification, which discouraged planning, standardisation of components and planning of purchases. It... -
Customer case2 min reading timeThe global engineering consultant who wanted to increase project profitability
The company has had an acquisition-driven strategy for many years and is adept at integrating staff functions and business systems, but along the way had failed to harmonise the delivery process to the customer.... -
Customer case2 min reading timeOperationalising project management in a Nordic construction company to support all project managers through a process-oriented approach.
Their existing business/management system, which is currently on SharePoint, is characterised by thousands of documents containing long routines, policies, large amounts of text and outdated information for those who will be running the projects. This leads... -
Customer case2 min reading timeGuiding two different companies within the same group towards a joint decision on a new business system.
When we started the system procurement with our customer, they had two different business systems, one of which would cease to be supported at the end of next year and the other would need to be upgraded and lifted.... -
Customer case2 min reading timeThe retailer who wanted to implement a deviation management system underpinned by a harmonised approach across all countries in the business.
The customer's business in the workwear, tools and personal protection industry was characterised by decentralised processes, with different countries having different levels of progress in terms of whether a system support was in place to manage and monitor... -
Customer case1 min reading timeCustomer needed to streamline e-commerce with new warehouse management systems
For retailers, as for many other industries, e-commerce has been a clearly growing business in recent years and is becoming increasingly important for the major players in the market. But e-commerce... -
Customer case1 min reading timeThe industrial company that needed to create standardised HR processes
A major customer of Rededge in the manufacturing industry wanted to harmonise their HR processes across borders. With factories on several continents, there were major challenges in finding a "unifying" system support that...