Cutter Consortium is committed to providing you with the most current IT solutions, best practices, and strategies on the topics you and your team are struggling with today. The Cutter Consortium Webinar series is provided to you as a value-added benefit for Cutter clients.

Summit 2009

Summit 2009
4-6 May 2009 | Cambridge, MA

Register today & save $200!


A Complimentary Webinar Exclusively for Cutter Consortium Clients

Jerry Peterson
Jerry Peterson on Risk Management for ERP

Presenter: Gerald Peterson, Senior Consultant, Enterprise Risk Management & Governance, Business-IT Strategies

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs are notoriously prone to implementation difficulties. Many overrun their budgets, slip their schedules, disappoint their sponsors, or all of the above. Program failure rates are variously estimated to be at 40%-60%. So understanding the risks of ERP programs and knowing how to mitigate them should be a prime concern for any program manager.

In this live webinar, Cutter Senior Consultant Gerald Peterson offers advice about taking the risk out of ERP programs. His first piece of advice may surprise you: "Take a few risks." Discover why you can never eliminate risk entirely, and why it's not a good idea to try.

Jerry will provide you with insight into the six learnable risks (that is, ones we can make less uncertain if we take the time and resources to learn more about them) of ERP implementation:

  1. Business Fit - Is there alignment between the capabilities that the ERP system is expected to provide and the capabilities that it actually ends up providing?
  2. ERP and Related Software - What errors and omissions occur in the configuration and development of the ERP software suite?
  3. Technical Infrastructure - Are there capacity, performance, or functionality shortfalls in the operating environment that is installed to run the ERP suite?
  4. Data Quality - What problems will be encountered with accuracy, timeliness, structure, or extent of the initial data loaded into the ERP system?
  5. Organizational Readiness - Has your organization adequately prepared the people who must use the new ERP system for the changes they will experience?
  6. Program Management - How will issues stemming from the budget, schedule, staffing, or contracts for the program be managed?

And then Jerry will walk you through a holistic approach to ERP risk management including:

  • A risk triage, based on what you can learn with relative ease.
  • Developing risk management plans for the high-priority risks to deepen your understanding of causes, likelihood, and potential impact.
  • Developing an organizational learning plan that encompasses learning new skills and ways of working; mastering new hardware and software; and, for people on the ERP program team, managing change of such large magnitude.
  • Articulating a clear vision of success that provides a beacon to keep the program on track during implementation and a standard for judging accomplishment at the end.

Spend an hour with Jerry Peterson and learn how you can take risk while minimizing risk on your ERP implementation.

Risk Management for ERP