Since I started in the SAP (ERP) arena in 1994 I've heard it often repeated, reiterated, studied, and pronounced that one of the key criteria for IT project success is executive participation.  That mandate applies to any large scale project, whether it is ERP, CRM, APO, SOA, BI, or other solutions.

Many implementation companies wrongly believe this is because the executive brings a measure of authority and visibility to the project and that is the key reason for executive participation.  The most often overlooked reason has more to do with the senior executive role than any of these other reasons.  And although the previously quoted reasons are valid it is because of executive insight into the company’s future that creates the possibility for strong client satisfaction and success.

Most mid to large scale IT projects, whether they are ERP, CRM, Business Intelligence, or other business transformation initiatives last at least 3 months, and most are 6 months to 2 years (or more) depending on the size, scale, and scope of the company and IT effort.  Combine this with the senior executive role of setting direction and strategy, as well as mid and long term goals of the organization, and that insight is critical to ensure success. 

If you’re a CIO, IT Director, or IT decision maker, extended executive involvement can make a real difference with C-level satisfaction with implementation or upgrade results--, without it you may be headed for rough roads and difficult budget discussions.

A Couple Illustrations 

I’ve been on SAP projects where the executives asked some key questions about application readiness for future events.  They were not clearly noted as such, but were definitely voiced, and then pushed into the project. 

On one very large client, the Senior VP of Operations asked what the requirements were for adding new companies if at some point in the future they decided to acquire another business.  A couple weeks later, the client project manager insisted that the company needed full documentation to support the required configuration settings to set up a new company code for financial postings only, not operations.  About six months after the go-live event they purchased another company where they left the operations in tact, without altering their existing systems, but interfaced to SAP as the financial system of record. 

At another company the CEO frequently attended weekly project team lead meetings and in one of those discussions noted the company needed to be able to source products from a different distribution facility, by customer, on an ad hoc basis and for periods of time that would not be consistent or continuous.  This was required at times even if the primary warehouse had stocks to service the customer. 

Special development efforts were made to integrate a customized solution allowing for the default customer distribution warehouse to be overridden by customer or product, or a combination thereof for a particular date range.   On this particular project about three months after going live the reason was discovered. 

The business was consolidating and closing a couple of distribution facilities and this allowed for an orderly withdrawal of inventory and of business without significant transportation or carrying costs.  It was transparent to the customer as well.  The MRP portion of the system saw the reduced demand on the closing warehouses and therefore planned less replenishment stock until the distribution facilities were mothballed.  By the same token, the additional demand on the consolidated warehouses was also picked up and accounted for so that disruption was minimal.

Without this future preparation built into the system at go-live, it would have created significant hardships and difficulties in addressing these business needs.  The failure to plan for future business

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