I saw a new report by Nick Castellina with the Aberdeen Group and immediately knew that this was valuable information for our Dynamics GP ERP prospects and customers. As a Dynamics GP Silver ERP Partner, CIS strongly recommends classroom training for all our new ERP customers. Training on new software is critical to the success of your software investment. Enjoy this article and Nick's paper on The Value of ERP Training.
"A recent Aberdeen report helped to uncover the value that organizations receive by committing training their employees on their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. ERP is the essential tool that organizations need to run effectively and efficiently from end to end. The solution can lead to great benefits in performance metrics such as profit margins, inventory accuracy, complete and on-time delivery, and many others. But just implementing an ERP solution does not ensure that these benefits will be received. Instead, organizations must actively strive for ERP success by committing to employee training.
Note the commitment to training in Best-in-Class organizations in comparison to All Others (Figure 1). The Best-in-Class are 82% more likely than All Others to properly train new employees after the initial stages of implementation. Further, the Best-in-Class are 80% more likely than All Others to have a formal onboarding process to train all new users. By standardizing these processes, the organization can ensure that every employee that uses ERP receives best practices training and can therefore fully use the solution.
How do organizations achieve these goals? Sixty-six percent (66%) of the Best-in-Class have documented and shared ERP training materials. This way, employees can find the information they need whenever they need it. Additionally, 61% of the Best-in-Class have job-role specific training for ERP, in comparison to 46% of All Others. Therefore, employees are actually only trained on the information they need in order to improve their individual performance with ERP. The information can be much more detailed, tailored, and useful.
So what are the benefits of this approach? Organizations that have a formal ERP training process that is used for new users on an ongoing basis receive the benefits of improved employee adoption and performance, which leads to quicker ROI and more efficient implementation projects (Table 1). For example, in organizations that are committed to ERP training, 38% of employees exceed their performance metrics and 58% of employees rate themselves "highly engaged". This helps lead to an average time to ROI of 22.8 months in comparison to 35.3 months for organizations that are not committed to training. This data indicates that ERP training is crucial towards making the most out of an ERP investment.
For ERP to truly transform an organization, it requires commitment from the organization as a whole. It is not a "set it and forget it" tool. Rather, organizations that make the most out of their ERP investment commit to actively promoting it as an organizational foundation. Not only should those at the top of the organization support the tool, commitment should reach down to those that will be utilizing the tool for their daily job tasks. This commitment can be communicated and enforced through ERP training. Any investment as substantial as ERP is worth doing right. By committing to ERP training, organizations can set a foundation for success.
The full report can be found at The Value of ERP Training.
To reach Aberdeen’s Nick Castellina on Twitter, visit twitter.com/nickcastellina"
Thanks to Nick for his article and informative information. Nancy Phillippi is the sales and marketing manager at Custom Information Services (CIS). Nancy has 16 years of ERP sales and project management experience with ERP including Dynamics GP. CIS is a Silver Dynamics GP Partner and MSP located in North Texas. Contact Nancy for ERP training information at nphillippi@customis.com.
The post Training is the Key Component to Reaching ROI with ERP appeared first on ERP Software Blog.