“Change management determines ERP implementation success” might be the most-ignored advice in the enterprise technology realm. That doesn’t make it any less important.
ERP offers significant business advantages — but only if it is widely adopted. And that means CIOs and other leaders must make people the priority.
“Particularly in this cloud era, people issues seem to be one of — if not the — most important factors in the success of an ERP implementation,” said Kathie Topel, director of organizational transformation at consulting firm Protiviti.
What is change management?
The Association of Change Management Professionals defines change management as “the practice of applying a structured approach to transition an organization from a current state to a future state to achieve expected benefits.”
In simpler terms, change management is what leaders, managers and others do to prepare and help employees do things differently — such as adopt a new ERP system — or to ease them into changes such as organizational restructuring.
6 keys to ERP change management
Here are six tips from the experts for using change management for ERP implementation success.
1. Prioritize change management
Change management, especially for something as major as an ERP implementation, must be deliberate and carefully executed to be effective.
“ERP implementations are truly transformational initiatives that impact end-to-end processes and involve complex organizational and technical interdependencies,” said Hong Kwok, research director at Info-Tech Research Group, a global research and advisory firm.
Users and stakeholders must adapt to the new technology while also learning new processes, Kwok said. And while many organizations undertake some change management activities, they are often insufficient and lack structure, consistency or prioritization, he added.
As a result of such missteps, 55% of ERP projects reported being over budget, and two-thirds realized less than half of their anticipated benefits, according to Info-Tech Research Group.
However, even if everything is planned, mapped and well executed, an ERP project will fail if the rank and file shun it.
“Change management is critical because when an enterprise system is implemented, it doesn’t mean that employees use it and use it to its potential, and that’s a big problem,” said Deepak Lalwani, principal at Deepak Lalwani & Associates, a change management and business transformation consultancy specializing in ERP implementations. “If nobody is using the system, there’s no point in having it, so adoption is critically important.”
2. Ensure leadership buy-in
Business leaders must be proactive and engaged in rolling out the new ERP system, since they function as the most important change champions.
“Change has to be led — the effort from the senior leaders in the company goes a long way to support the change efforts,” said David Ogilvie, founder of Ogilvie.ai, a consulting firm. “If this is missing, it makes the task of change that much harder and easier to derail.”
That also requires addressing resistant leaders.
Change has to be led. The effort from the senior leaders in the company goes a long way. David OgilvieFounder, Ogilvie.ai
“People assume that the leaders of the company are aligned because the project was approved. However, in my experience, [the need for] leaders driving change permeates throughout an organization, and a single dissenter can derail the ability of an organization to adapt,” said Sarah Broyd, a partner at Clarkston Consulting.
People in the C-suite aren’t the only leaders in the organization who should take an active role from the start. Line-of-business leaders should, too.
In general, anyone in the organization responsible for making the change, or whose job is affected by it, should be a participant from the start of an ERP project.
“Realize [users are] thinking, ‘What’s in it for me?'” Topel said.
3. Address employee fears and concerns
The saying might be that “familiarity breeds contempt,” but when it comes to change management a truer saying would be “familiarity is comforting, even when it doesn’t work well.” Employees often feel they have a certain expertise in the current system. And even if the existing ERP system requires workarounds, those issues are known. A new system requires new processes and behaviors, and, for busy workers, the prospect of spending time learning a new system that might not even be that great is a hard sell. Change makers need to recognize those concerns and address them.
ERP implementations require a deliberate, well-planned change management strategy.
“These gaps frequently lead to poor overall adoption and significantly increase the likelihood that the ERP implementation will fail to deliver on its intended outcomes,” Kwok said.
Project leaders can start by understanding how employees work currently and exactly what changes the new ERP system will require of them. Then they can consider what the benefits of the new ERP system are and market those.
From there, it is a matter of consistent guidance to keep employees on course.
“Most importantly, effective change management with a strong leadership commitment, regardless of the magnitude of change, sets the tone for all stakeholders,” Kwok said. Leadership must be united in its approach to change management, he said, or misalignments could result that lead to confusion and disengagement.
But change management is no set-it-and-forget-it effort. Follow-through is crucial.
“The commitment must also be sustained and visible. That includes senior leaders holding each other accountable for supporting the change. Otherwise, it can lead to an environment where employees feel free to ignore new processes and ways of working,” Kwok said.
4. Consider past change successes and failures
Change management strategies vary with business goals and cultures.
Looking to the organization’s strengths and weaknesses as they relate to change resilience is an important factor in change management. What other changes has the organization weathered? How did leaders and employees handle those well? Which did they handle poorly? What can everyone learn from those lessons and apply to the current ERP implementation?
“The organization’s history of successful change in the past will have a big impact on how successful any change efforts are,” Ogilvie said. “Similar to sports where winning is a habit [or not], if the company does not have the habit of successfully making changes, this significantly increases the effort required to be successful with an ERP project.”
5. Customize best practices
Whatever strategy CIOs and other leaders choose, it’s important not to take a generic or cookie-cutter approach.
“Don’t make change management a set of [generic] best practice communications, meetings and project protocols,” said Lisa Anderson, founder of LMA Consulting Group, a consultancy specializing in manufacturing strategy and supply chain transformation.
Instead, leaders can create a customized strategy of how each stakeholder can support the business objectives and get people on board, Anderson said.
6. Create a change roadmap
As with many complex endeavors, real-life ERP change management doesn’t have neatly demarcated stages. Still, creating a roadmap is important.
To that end, leaders can use the following roadmap as a starting point:
Stakeholder analysis. Engage executives, department leaders, process owners and frontline employees early to build support and reduce resistance throughout the implementation.
Current state analysis. Document existing workflows, dependencies and obstacles to identify operational risks and areas likely to be disrupted by ERP standardization.
Future business process. Define how business processes, reporting structures and employee responsibilities will function after deployment.
Check-ins. Conduct regular reviews to identify adoption risks, training gaps and workflow conflicts before go-live. Then conduct change impact assessments at several intervals throughout the project — for example, after design, initial builds and initial testing.
Opportunity identification. Use change impact assessment findings to drive training, communication, support and any policy changes that are needed.
Editor’s note: This 2020 article was updated in February 2024 and again in July 2026.
Pam Baker is the author of eight books and hundreds of technology articles published in leading online and print publications. She is also a speaker and industry analyst and a member of the National Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists and the Internet Press Guild.
