Discovering the implementation team

It is important for companies that want to implement ERP to understand that its implementation is not an easy task and it requires dedication, investment, and a professional partner. For example, Value Added Reseller (VAR), which has a consulting team experienced in implementing ERP, preferably has a partner that is an expert in the customer industry. On top of that, the customer should have a close engagement between management, key users, and end users during the implementation project. The implementation team is considered to be the key success factor for the ERP implementation.

The following diagram illustrates the ERP implementation team that consists of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and key users from customer- and partner-side applications and technical consultants. This team works together closely during the implementation, where the customer representatives (SMEs and key users) deliver the business requirements (that is, what they are expecting from ERP), with the consulting team that bridges the gap between the business requirements and the implemented application. This comes through several workshops via analysis, design, development, and testing. Microsoft plays a role in the implementation life cycle; the FastTrack team from Microsoft is a customer program that works on the implementation from the beginning to ensure safe onboarding for the customer to the cloud solution.

The Microsoft Support team works directly with partners and customers on support requests, and there is also a newly introduced team which is responsible for service requests that are related to the production environment:

The implementation team should focus on two types of internal client: business executives and end users. Each client has a different perspective of the ERP implementation, and the implementation team should consider their requirements during the implementation life cycle. The executives' management focuses on reporting and end results, and the implementation team delivers policies and procedures to end users, who then operate the final product, which is the ERP application.