Name: What 1,618 ERP Implementations Reveal About Success
Uploaded: 2026-02-04T16:31:03.891Z
Duration: 59 min 56 s
Description: What 1,618 ERP Implementations Reveal About Success

Transcript for "What 1,618 ERP Implementations Reveal About Success": Well, hello. A warm welcome to everyone, and thank you for joining this one hour session to explore what more than 1,600 ERP implementations can teach us about driving successful ERP projects in 2026. So we are excited to host a conversation today with leading ProSight experts who will help us unpack the key insights from ProSight, our latest ERP research, and share real life examples illustrating these learnings in action. So we are going to talk about human, about the people side of an ERP project, not about technical part of the ERP implementations. And our ambition today is to show you that, yes, it works when you embed change management into your ERP implementation often early. So before we get started, I have a few housekeeping items to run through with you. So first, we are recording today's session, and you will, receive a link to your email. And if for some reason that doesn't come through, you will find it on our website tomorrow or the day after. On the right side of your screen, you have a window to chat with everyone on the call today. And if you haven't already shared yet where you're calling in from today, please do it. I'm personally based in France. And I know that we will have participants joining us from all over the world today. So you will also see a tab for Q and A. And if you have questions during today's broadcast, please use the Q and A window in the right side menu to reach our backstage team. Questions are welcome. And if time allows, we'll answer them live. Closed captions and subtitle, translations are enabled for this event for this event. Sorry. So you can turn this one by clicking the icon in the bottom right, of your video player. So for those who who I haven't had a chance to meet before, my name is Celine Simone. I serve as vice president of delivery services for Prosci in Europe, And my role is to support our training and consulting teams in helping our clients achieve success with the change initiatives. As you know, we are a global firm, and many of you are likely interactive, interacting with ProSci and with colleagues based in our other ProSci regions. So today, I'm going to be joined by three great experts from First, Doctor. Scott Henderson. Scott is our Head of Research, and it is thanks to him that we have such a comprehensive body of data and research in the field of change management. And Scott is probably the person within ProSci with the deepest knowledge of best practices for delivering successful ERP projects. We have the privilege to have him with us today to share the latest research findings. We also have the privilege to be joined by two ProSci international experts who have supported dozens of clients in delivering their transformation initiatives with a strong focus on ERP and digital programs. So Amber Servisson, Principal Change Advisor is based in North America. And Claire Guillaume, senior principal change adviser is based in Europe. Amber and Claire will complement Scott's research findings with practical and real world examples drawn from their on the ground experience. So welcome, Claire, welcome, Scott, welcome, Amber. So for those who may be less familiar with Prostar, I would like to offer a brief, very brief introduction. So at our core, we are a research driven organization delivering enterprise solutions, grounded in proprietary data and insights. We are a leading firm specializing in change management, specifically how organizations achieve adoption and realize the full benefits of their ROI driven initiatives by effectively addressing the people side of change. So when we think about adoption, how do we get people to lean in and adopt the solution? How do we get people to actually change the behaviors that we need? So we've built a leading and powerful framework work. I hope that you all know Atcar, of course, to answer these questions. And most organizations are using us specifically on projects ready to drive that kind of adoption efforts. If you haven't seen some of the full ways that we support clients, I just want to spend a moment walking through that specifically in the context of ERP since that's the conversation we'll be having today. So Prosci believes that change done right is achieved by empowering individuals and organizations to achieve change success. So the first piece that we do is actually build change capability via role based training programs for sponsors, change managers, for project managers, and key roles within organizations. We also have advisory teams able to support ERP projects and teams acting as mentor or coach to embed change management, in your organization or acting as expert change managers. So if you are looking to rapidly expand, the internal use of our solutions, we also offer licensing and e learning options that give you access to ProSci's full breadth of expertise. Our ambition at ProSci is ready to help organizations and also individuals become stronger through change. That's why we propose this combination of offerings. And that's why also leading organizations from all over the globe are partnering with us. But now, let's talk about We would love to learn more about you and your ERP project. So the question I have for you is very simple. Where are you in your ERP implementation journey? Are you in the pre implementation phase or mid implementation phase? Are you at the end of your project? Are you quite worried or confident with your project? So you can see that there is a questionnaire. So please take moment to answer this poll by clicking the right answer. So it seems to me that quite many of you are in the pre implementation phase, 41% and somehow a little bit worried. So I hope that today's webinar will bring a few answers, and that's, of course, our ambition to bring you with very concrete examples and insights. So thank you for the poll. Maybe we can go back, thank you, to the slides. So as mentioned earlier, ProSci provides solutions based on research. And today, we have Doctor. Scott Anderson with us to share about our latest study about ERP implementations done in 2025. So Scott, please tell us about this latest project. Yes. Thank you, Celine. It is so good to be here to be part of this. I'm thinking back a little bit. Prosci has been doing research for the last twenty five years. And personally, I came across ProSci a little more than ten years ago, and it really changed the course of a lot of the projects that I was supporting and working on in large part because of the research. So today, I'm really excited as the head of research to be sharing some of the findings about unlocking ERP implementation success. So for this study, we had over 1,600 participants across 20 countries who told us about their experience of of implementing across eight major ERP platforms. They represent 38 industries, which the breadth of this was just fantastic. One thing that I was particularly pleased with is the representation of the different individuals that we were able to hear from. We're able to hear from more than 600 leaders in ERP. So these were the executives, the directors, those who had been tasked with carrying out the ERP initiative. We also had a little over 500 business professionals. So these were the heads of different business units that were participating in the ERP implementation. And then finally, we had nearly 500 technical experts. So these were your your systems integration specialists, your data migration specialists, the really back end people who knew the technical side of the change. This is the most comprehensive study of ERP implementation leadership teams ever assembled. It's 12 times larger in terms of participants than any comparable research that I was able to find. So with that, what exactly is in this study? I will say at the beginning, there is a lot. It goes into selecting an ERP. How do you set up your structure for the implementation? We talk about resistance management, about training, about employee engagement, about measuring success. It covers a lot of ground. Today, there's one item that's highlighted in yellow at the bottom that was about top things to do differently to improve benefits in ERP implementations. Specifically, there's one question that we asked that was what would to improve the business benefits gained from your ERP implementation? About five, six years ago when I was on a team that was responsible for implementing an ERP, I wish I would have been able to talk to two or three or five, let alone 1,600 people, and ask them this question. What would you have done differently now that you've done this, now that you've been there, now that you're in the midst of it? So what we found from our respondents is that there were five main categories or what we call levers that that they responded with. Number one was around people and change management. The second was measurement and continuous improvement. Third was that strategy and process design. Fourth was around project planning and execution. And fifth was around the technology and automation. Let me give you a little more insight about what went into each of these. So you can see here on the screen that we have this column that contains the themes. Essentially, what we had done is gone out and we had asked this question to the participants, and then we conducted a thematic analysis to see what the primary things were that they were sharing. So you can see there in the people in change management on top that they were talking about training and stakeholders, managing the change, improving communication and collaboration. That accounted for 36% of all responses. Now compare that with the one on the bottom, technology and automation, which is where a lot of people tend to obsess and focus. Down on that one, you had 6% of respondents who specifically talked about increasing automation and integrating systems. Great. So thank you, Scott, for sharing a bit about, I would say, the what of the research. Now I really look forward to hearing more about the so what, meaning the implications, and now what for the applications of these insights. Focusing on the three most important levers, people and change management, measurement and continuous improvement, and strategy and process design. So if I remember, well, we have 41% of the audience starting their own ERP journey. So let's start with the three the pre implementation phase. So Scott, Amber, Claire, what two, three pieces of advice would you give to someone just starting with their ERP implementation journey? And maybe, Scott, let's start with you. Yes. Thank you. I'll I'll go right back to what the research was telling us. If we look at those three first categories, we can see that people in change represented 82% of of the things that people would do differently compared to that 18 on the technical implementation side. So my first piece of advice is to remember that ERP is fundamentally a human transformation challenge. It's not a technology implementation. The second piece of advice that I would have also just goes back straight to the research. That first lever or category of people in change management represented 36%. Now when I when I compare that with some other data we have, I go back to, 2023. We had asked this question about how much money is being invested for change management efforts specifically on ERP projects. And what we saw is that it was oftentimes less than 10%, and they were lucky if they had 10% of the overall budget. And so to me, that gap between what we're hearing from 1,600 people here saying we would focus more on the people in change management, and yet the change management budgets lag far behind. That is a gap that I would address. It's all about allocating budgets that are proportional to the activities that will provide the greatest business benefits. And I think that's so true, Scott. ERP is a human transformation challenge, not, I would say, only a technology implementation. And the budget allocated to the people side is, you're right, often underestimated. So Amber, Claire, you have helped multiple clients successfully implement ERP. So from your experience, what advice would you have for someone just starting with their ERP implementation? So maybe let's start with you, Amber. Alright. Thank you, Celine. And so as mentioned in our introductions, Claire and I work on the change side of ERP implementation. So we are partnering with leaders and teams as they move through these complex system changes and also, as well as their ways of working. So the first piece of advice that popped into my head was how important it is to bring change management in early. So not just as a support function, but also as a part of that core project team. On one program that I supported, the organization was moving from a thirty year old legacy system to a new system. And I kinda equate that to, like, using a rotary phone and then tomorrow I'm going to use the newest iPhone. So it was a huge impact, significant changes. And there were also multiple business processes that had to be optimized before they started that e r ERP implementation. But because they brought change management in early, the change team was able to help shape some of those decisions around the requirements and planning that focused on how the actual people were impacted by this change and that made adoption much smoother down the line. So, Claire, I know from your side, where do you see early engagement making the biggest difference? Yes. Thanks, Amber. Indeed, building on on what you just said and actually also to reinforce your point, a couple of years ago, I worked on setting up a change management office right at the start of of an ERP program for a large energy company. And having that change management office created and structured really early and fully supported by the ERP program sponsor, I'll come back to that, It really helped positioning the change management as a critical piece of the ERP deployment as you were mentioning. And that ties directly to the advice I wanted to share to the audience is that from the beginning, make sure that you identify the right executive sponsor and that you assess also how mature and supportive he or she really is. It is absolutely essential. And I learned it, I would say, that the hard way because some years ago, large SAP deployment in the telecom sector, we discovered after six months, let's say like that, that's the ERP sponsor who was the head of business transformation was actually resisting the change. And so we ended up and the program director really played a crucial role here. We ended up shifting the sponsorship to the chief financial officer who was really supportive and and show and demonstrated his support to this transformation. And from that moment, the program became much smoother and moved in a far better direction. So it completely changed the way the program moved on, up to the success, I would say, four years later. So having for me, the right executive sponsor since the beginning of your ERP implementation would be my strong advice in addition to the the ones provided by my colleagues. I think it's very true. We sometimes learn the hard way. So thank you, Scott, Amber and Claire. So if I were to summarize maybe your advice in just a few words, well, it would be, first, do not underestimate the budget allocated to the people side of the project. Maybe also start integrating the change management dimension very early in the initiative. And as you were mentioning, ensure you have an active, visible executive sponsor with a strong level of change management maturity. So thank you. Think it's very, very helpful insights. So let's continue. We would love to have your view on this. So please, and your attendees, take a moment to add your piece of advice in the chat. So you will find the chat at the top right of your screen. I'm sure your ideas ideas will be very helpful for all of us. So over to you now. Looking forward to reading your insights. Integration with PM. That's clear. That's very important. Create channel of trust to help enhance adoption rate. Engage and secure commitment of the leadership team. You're right. It's very clear. It's the coalition of sponsors. Establish roles, and responsibilities of the project team very early. That's, I think, also a key point. A project team very open to change management. Have a clear why of the projects. I believe that we will talk also about this very soon. And the last one, understanding total impact on people, how many individuals we need to adopt and utilize new ways of working, impacted populations. You're right. It's key. So please keep sharing your ideas. Of course, you will get all these great insights at the end of the of this webinar. But Scott mentioned earlier, you may remember five ERP benefits levels. So let's deep dive a bit into some of the key findings of the top three levels, beginning with the top category of people change management. So in this study, people and change management was the most frequently mentioned way to improve the benefits in ERP implementations. So Scott, tell me about what we are seeing here in this slide. Yeah, and again, thank you. I would say this piece first. Investing in people is the difference between ERP potential and the actual business value that you end up seeing in the ERP. So with this, the very first thing that our participants mentioned they would do differently is to improve training. And this was about training that would stick. This wasn't necessarily saying saying just do more training, but it was about better training. And by better training, what they meant was making sure that it was role based, that it was hands on, and that it came at the right time. One of the keys here is that if your people can't apply it on Monday morning, they weren't trained well. The the second thing that participants would do differently is to engage stakeholders. And this was really about designing with and not for. So there there were so many of the participants that talked about how they were they were too late in the process to bring other people in to the the ERP transformation. And what they would have done is they said we would have had more early involvement. And that word early was a critical one, and pulling them in to the designs and the decisions and then maintaining that ongoing connection. One of the insights that I got from this one is that isolation feeds resistance and engagement feeds adoption. The next thing that our respondents said they do differently is manage the change. And what they meant by this was to change on purpose. So so often, we can think about improvising when it comes to change. We'll just kinda make it up as we go, and it'll just happen. That's not what people were saying. Respondents were saying, really, what they would do differently is have a structured approach to guide the transformation. So looking at looking at things like being more deliberate, making sure that they were reinforcing the change with the people throughout the entire implementation process. When it comes to ERP implementations, hope is not a change strategy. The the next thing that people would do differently is to improve communication. And this one was really about amplifying the signal over the noise. So this this wasn't just about more messages, but it was about creating more clarity and meaning within the messages. So it was about looking at things like including, why are we doing this? What if we don't do this? What are the benefits? What's in it for me? If you think about it and and then it also had that piece of progress, making sure that you were keeping people informed of what was going on with with the change. If you think about it, when only 10% of your organization understands where you're going and why, the other 90% can't help you to get there. The final thing that participants would do differently is to foster collaboration. One team, one outcome. The contrast, and I heard it from so many of the participants, they were talking about these silos and that the ERP was being done in these silos throughout the organization. In contrast, what they were saying they would do differently is move more to this cross functional flow of data and information throughout the organization. So this was really about building this shared ownership and also looking at the full life cycle of the ERP within the organization. If you design silos into your ERP early, it's hard to collaborate them out later. Makes sense. And I really love what you said. Hope is not a strategy, manage change. So thank you, Scott. Claire, Amber, you've helped multiple clients implement ERP systems. So which of these findings resonate with your experience? Which of these activities have been most important for your clients? So maybe let's start with you, Amber. Excellent. So top of the chain here, improved training is the thing that really resonates with me, and I think we can all understand why it's such an important piece of the project success and outcomes. And teams know how important training is. That's a reality. But oftentimes, they underestimate the scale and the complexity of what good training actually requires. On one project I supported, it was a single site transformation, utilizing Dynamics d three sixty five system. Training planning started late. So they started training planning, close to when the user acceptance testing was being completed. And that created a rushed sessions and overwhelming feelings for the individuals who are going through training. And it also increased some resistance. They eventually had to push their goal life back six months to accommodate that training. Now in contrast, I also worked with an organization that was implementing Oracle Fusion, and they brought their learning and development team in very early in the process. And that really helped us as a change team while working on that change, on that training strategy to understand, some key things around learning and development. And that was like understanding audience segmentation, understanding different types of readiness risks that are involved in training. And that early planning didn't just improve the training, it actually helped build trust because the employees felt like the organization was investing in them and their success. So improved training, very important piece of, these key findings that we're looking at. Claire, so I know that you have seen organizations investing in engagement. How has that improved ERP projects? Yes. Thanks, Amber. So I fully support what you said on training. It really happened to me as well to work on user centric scenario, persona based training, and it was really impactful. But related to the second topic on engaging stakeholders, this is really important to start with it, to to deliver really the ERP benefits, I will say. And for that, I would like to share, like, two short examples to to illustrate this importance of engaging stakeholders. And it's really linked to one of the key findings for the ERP research. So I'm quoting, I would say, saying that engagement creates ownership, ownership drives adoption, and adoption enables value. So to illustrate to be that with one first example, at the start of an ERP program I I supported, we I I would say, meaning me as a change practitioner and the project manager and the sponsor, we invested in building a proper stakeholders map and assessing the the level of support from each of the key stakeholders. And I would say I've done that for this ERP program, but this is something we are regularly doing every time we are supporting a deployment on a for a specific change project. And having the stakeholders map ready, we invited a bunch of these stakeholders to co create a clear story for change. So the why of the program, what what Scott mentioned about having clarity and meaning about the messages. And what was important is that this story for change is something that we want the key stakeholders to cascade consistently across all the impacted entities. And the value of this exercise is really a way for for the for the leaders to be brought together to help them align on the key messages to deliver, to align as well on what the success should look like, how they would define the success. And they will say that at the end, let's celebrate that. And it's also allowed them to to jointly shape these key messages and bring the clarity that Scott was mentioning. So creating that story for change was really, for me, a powerful way to secure strong engagement from the beginning, an engagement, of course, that needs to be maintained over time. And my second example is on another program where the the change and the project teams created the story for change, but on their own, I would say. It was just validated by the sponsor and simply passed on to the sponsor coalition. And because this sponsor coalition was not involved in creating this why and messaging of the program, the coalition and the key stakeholders, you know, didn't really feel real ownership. And that lack of early engagement really slowed down the adoption of the new ERP tool by the impacted teams, you know, in their respective organizations. So for me, the the big takeaway is this engaging your stakeholders early, of course, through meaningful involvement, not just communication, is really one of the most powerful drivers, I would say, of of ERP success. And I think you're right. Design a powerful story for change with key stakeholders will probably also, improve what we call the cascading. And also start planning the training sessions very early in the process. It's what you said. And I really like this. Engagement creates ownership. Ownership drives adoption, and, adoption enables, value. So thank you for for this. So let's explore, now, the second, benefit lever. Measurement and continuous improvement. So please, Scott, could you share with us what this category is all about? Yes, so measurement represent 24% of all the responses. Measurement is the difference between hoping for benefits and actually being able to prove them. The very first thing that our respondents said they would do differently is to gather feedback. This was really about deliberate listening. What a lot of them were doing was moving from this place of reactive complaints, waiting until the complaints come up and then we'll respond to it, to being more proactive in setting up this listening system in the organization. And what that meant was having something that was structured, it was ongoing, and it was very much user centered. One of the insights that I got from this was the loud complaints can hide silent problems. The next thing that participants would do differently is to track KPIs, and this was all about the measures that really matter. So they were mentioning things like it was important to to track the system metrics. So maybe the number of people logging into the system or maybe it was the, number of errors in the system. That was good, but, really, what they were saying is we wish we would have moved more towards business outcomes and business objectives. So actually looking and and looking at things like, what is the impact on our inventory? What is the impact on our cycle time? What is the impact on our performance in general of our people and their ability to do their work? So this was really about measuring what matters and not just measuring what's easy. The third thing that respondents said they would do differently is to support post go live. When it comes to ERP, this is critical. Go live is just the beginning. So often, it's really common that once the system is implemented and turned on, that the organization wants to declare victory and say, mission accomplished, we did it. But the participants in the study were saying, no. What we would do differently is to ensure that we're optimizing all that time after the go live. So after the go live, we we would offer more support. We would continue to make adjustments after the actual implementation itself and continue to reinforce the use of the system in the in the ways that we would need. So, again, when you're talking about ERP, remember that go live is not the finish line, and it's actually when the real work of improvement begins. The the fourth thing that participants would do differently is to maximize the ROI. And and this one was really about making that business case real. So so it happens so often where at the beginning, what you're working on is the promise of the ERP. And what you have to move to and keep in mind is the proof of the ERP. So really what to to be able to do that, you have to be able to track what you're doing and to report and to adjust if necessary to say, is what we're doing actually getting us towards that goal? So the the promised ROI will get you funded, but it's the delivered ROI that will get you funded again. The fifth and final thing in this category that people would do differently is to enhance the analytics. And this was about going from a system focus to intelligence. So ERP systems are largely transactional data. They're sending data throughout the organization. And and what our respondents were telling us is that what they would do differently is start leveraging the insights that they're getting from those transactions. So it was about how do we leverage that data to start supporting these smarter business decisions. Essentially, the ERP becomes an intelligence source, not just a transaction engine. That's so that's very insightful. So thank you, Scott. Amber, Claire, how have these activities impacted your clients ERP implementations? Have you seen any particular challenges with any of these activities? Let's start with you, Claire. Yes. Thank you. So I would say, it probably won't surprise, our audience, but one of the recurring challenges I've seen across the European implementations is really tracking KPIs. So the the second one you see on the on the slide. Because defining what success looks like isn't always straightforward, and either you end up with too many KPIs, which I would say are often very technical ones, or you are not sure which ones, really matter. So in one project, for example, I pushed early on, to really include meaningful KPIs, including at car indicators for the impacted groups or usage of some of the key SAP modules, proficiency in using them. And we presented the KPIs to the sponsor at the start, but they were never formally validated. And I would say because of that, we weren't we were not really able to properly track the level of adoption all along the project deployment, and we ended up revisiting the metrics at the end of the project without full alignment and a bit far too late. So as you can imagine, it didn't bring much visible value. So now if I go on on a second topic, which is more related to the support post go live, as Scott mentioned, go live is just the beginning and not the finish line. On that same project, I worked with the project team quite early after the go live in two pilot countries on building what we are calling a specific sustainment plan and capturing the lessons learned. So, really, the goal was to make sure that all the right activities continued after the project transitions to the teams who would own the solution. And it's really important to think quite early in the process to build this sustainment plan. So having that in place helps avoid the classic, you know, drop in support once the project lights the pi once the project team, so we leave leave the pilot and, in this case, and and and start on on new other ways. So that's at least something I would like to share with you. And I know that on your side, Amber, you have also great experience to to to share on many how to gather feedback. Yeah. Thank you, Claire. So oftentimes, issues can grow into performance and adoption problems later on. And change management is here to help support that. So we're able to help spot and manage those risks by continually gathering feedback. So this is very important. And we use a mix of, different approach to do that. It may be a ad car style pulse check survey. You can do focus groups. Maybe you're meeting one on one, listening to managers who are close to where that change happens. On a recent engagement, a great example of uncovering some feedback and some of those small issues growing as we move through the project was a pulse check survey uncovered that we had a group that had a barrier to awareness and we're well on our way through the ERP implementation, planning and design process. And what we found was that in that particular group, it was the senior leader who was not advocating for that change and that was causing resistance within their own team and that was really impactful. However, we were able to gather more feedback from that leader. We were able to provide them with the support and the resources they needed to really understand the why behind why the ERP implementation was happening, and then also what the benefits were to that individual team. And that helped us, gather more feedback and apply that to other areas of the business. So the most successful programs that I've seen treat feedback as an early warning system. You know, that's decision making input that you can get from gathering feedback. Although, the challenge with feedback is that it only helps if the organization is ready to respond to it. Agreed, actually, and that's so important first to gather feedback and to show people also that, we are listening to their feedback. So my takeaway, from your discussion is that is first, the importance also of defining clear and shared criteria for success early in the process and to, I would say, align everyone, all the stakeholders with this. We talked about the importance of regularly gathering feedback from the impacted populations to monitor the progress. And also, you mentioned the importance of, yeah, a sustainment plan to also anchor the real benefits of the change. So that's very that was very helpful. So thank you for this. Let's explore now the third benefit lever. So the final lever to improve ERP benefits, we'll have time to talk about today. So it's strategy and process design. So Scott, please tell us more about that. Yeah. And I I really love this little subtitle, this subline, because to me, it encapsulates what this category was all about. And it's essentially technology amplifies whatever process you give it. The first thing that participants would do within this category that they would do differently is to optimize their processes. It's fixed before you automate. So often a lot of people would approach the ERP with this idea of we're gonna replicate our existing process. And what the participants were saying is, no, take this time to rethink, to reimagine, to reconfigure what the process could be and should be to meet your current business needs. They were talking about things like simplifying processes, standardizing their processes, and just in general, improving the processes before the ERP. The key takeaway for me from this was that you don't want to automate bad process. If you do, what you're doing is hard coding inefficiency into the organization, and that can take years to undo. The second thing that participants would do differently within this category was to align strategy. And what that meant really was to implement for a reason, to remember that you're you you may get caught up thinking that what you're doing is installing an ERP. That's not the end goal. That's not the job to be done. The job to be done is to enable your strategy in the organization. So what they were mentioning here was that line of sight of what the ERP features are, what they what you're installing in the ERP, and the competitive advantage that you hope to get because of the installation of the ERP system. So the question that I think every organization needs to ask themselves based on this is, are you installing software, or are you igniting strategy? The final thing that participants would do differently in this category, this lever, is to customize solutions. And what this really meant was customizing with intent. So it wasn't about just saying more customization, but it was really about getting the right balance of customization. So so many of these ERP systems have done a really great job in putting together processes off the shelf. Oftentimes, would say it's important to look at the standardized processes first that the ERP systems offer, but then to differentiate selectively. It was essentially about getting that balance right. And, again, customizing only where it actually creates competitive advantage. Makes sense. Thank you, Scott. So again, Amber, Claire, how have these findings shown up in your work with clients? And maybe also based on your experience with clients, what are your thoughts about customizing ERP solutions? Maybe Amber, to start with? Thanks, Colleen. So what I've seen consistently is that customization decisions work best when they are grounded in strategy. So a lot of the things that Scott is you know, was talking us through on the slide, and not just focusing on preferences or legacy ways of working, you know, connecting those system features back to the business outcomes to, you know, ensuring that we know what we're trying to achieve with this implementation. And when that alignment does happen early, you're actually creating a a a strategic choice when you're talking about customization. And when you don't do that, it can actually lock in a type of misalignment. Right? And so I think that aligning strategy is so important. On a recent, engagement I supported, there was no established business strategy for the around that ERP implementation. And what we saw was that different parts of the business were making decisions based on their local needs. And then over time, that solution just kinda drifted further away from the original intent of the implementation. So ultimately they actually had to pause for an entire year and restart the implementation until they fully aligned on their business strategy as well as the outcomes that they'd like to achieve for their ERP system in their, facilities. So, you know, for me that experience really reinforced that early alignment isn't optional. And I know, Claire, that you have seen something similar where optimizing processes tied into customizations. Yes. So, indeed, I think it's important, as mentioned on the slide as well, that while optimizing processes, the sequence really matters. And I will go back to my earlier example of the SAP deployment for a large energy company, you know, the one where I created the the the change management office right at the beginning. And in that case, the ERP program was highly dependent on another initiative that was rationalizing the entire application landscape. And the challenge was that for each country, each wave, the the the applications were supposed to be ready with the right API before the ERP arrived, so before SAP arrived. And because that sequencing was not fully aligned, the the the two program leaders as such were not really talking to each other or not at the right rhythm, it really created a lot of confusion and introduced a real risk, in fact, for the the ERP success rollout. So this is still ongoing. I guess they are fixing stuff, but it's something I wanted to to to highlight to you. And on the topic of customizing solutions, what I've seen I I've seen a noticed a kind of pattern across many ERP deployments I've been able to support is what I would call the the Pareto law in practice. So about 2020% local adaptation for 80% standardization. So what does it mean? Is that when you roll out an ERP, you simply cannot apply a one size fits all model, of course. And allowing the right level of adaptation is really important for the organization. It is a way for one, I would say, make compromise and get also more engagement from stakeholders from the different countries by showing some flexibility to to balance standardization. And two, it is also a way to differentiate yourself from the competition, so differentiate selectively, as Scott mentioned, even when you are using the same technical solution. So you always have, I would say, a piece of customization when you deploy an ERP. Great. Thank you for this. Actually, my key learnings, it's also something Scott mentioned. Sequence matters, streamlining workflows before configuring technology technologies is important, rather than forcing ERP to match, flowed workflows. And also something you said, Scott, it's connecting ERP objectives, with strategic and business outcomes. This is key. So thank you so much, Claire and Amber for sharing these real case examples and insights. So we let's move on. And maybe here, you can see all the benefits levels and sub themes. So we only explored the first three, and I suspect we could have spent at least one hour more exploring project planning and execution and technology and automation. So maybe just quickly on the Claire, any final observations or thoughts? For example, what didn't come up in the research that you expected or which levels or insights were surprising to see? So maybe let's start with you, Claire. Yes. So one thing I would say that really stood out to me when reading through our latest ERP research and something we didn't get a chance to to cover during the webinar is that resistance to an ERP deployment happens at every level of the organization. So it was quite a surprise as well to me. So it's not just the end users who are resisting, but you all also see resistance from the team leaders and from the executives. So remember the the sponsor who was resistant in the first example that I gave. So that's that's something to have in mind. And resistance increases as the deployment progresses. This is also something I would like to share. So for me, those points really reinforce how critical it is to focus on the stakeholders' engagement. That's it can have a serious impact on the on the adoption adoption and the overall success of your ERP, so pay attention to that. Amber? Thanks, Claire. I didn't have any major surprises or expectations. I think this research is fantastic. And I know we didn't get the opportunity to discuss the fourth and fifth levers, but I did wanna make a note that we do often see a number of organizations that focus very heavily on the project planning and execution piece. And that's where they focus all of their efforts on that resource and budget and the dollar value. But I think we can clearly see here how impactful all of these levers are towards a successful implementation. And that human factors actually matter in improving ERP benefits. Good. So thank you to both of you for these very valuable remarks. So over to you now, dear participants. So you probably know that at ProSci, we're committed to providing solutions that make a difference to our clients. So based on that, and to this discussion, what is one thing you might do differently after this webinar to improve the benefits gained from your ERP implementation? So please use the chat to answer. We are already looking forward to reading you on that topics. So you can use the chat for this. Uh-huh. Focus on process optimization. So it's going quite quickly. So I'm not sure I will be able to pick up everything, but I still gather feedback, stakeholder engagement, stakeholder management, clarify also, the criteria, share the outcome process. I love it. So that's great. Of course, you will have all the comments. So another thing, you we are deeply, as I was saying, committed to helping our clients. So you may not have found audiences that you were wanted to have. So I invite you to respond to the survey that has just been sent to you. You will see that between chat and q and a, you see poll with a red dot. So the poll will remain open until the end of the webinar. So if you want more insights from our experts, so please click on the poll. You will know more for the next steps. So Scott, let's share a brief recap. What can we do to explore or deep dive in the research? Because there are quite many questions about this in the chat. Yep. Yeah. And today, obviously, we only covered that little yellow highlighted item. Again, there's so much more in in this research. One thing that we've done on this front is to actually create a variety of ProSci research publications. So of course, we have the full. 190 pages of insights that is available in our research hub. But then we also have these smaller reports that are either white papers or what we call catalyst reports. And those are about 10 to 20 pages of information about specific parts of the research. For example, training or looking at measurement of your ERP or resistance. Then we also have these change success insights reports. And so there's one of those that is specific to each of the major ERP platforms that we looked at. So if you're implementing an SAP implementation or a Workday or ODDO or whatever it may be, there's a specific report that we've developed that is specific to that type of an implementation. So that's great, Scott. So a warm thank you for all these details about the research. So before we jump to the Q and A, I'm not sure that we will have so much time to answer your questions. So just a quick note, research matters and only matters when it's applied, so when it makes a difference for our clients. So we hope this webinar made a difference for you. And we also hope that our discussions and key findings have provided you with ideas, new perspectives and insight. So a heartfelt thank you to Scott, Amber, and Claire for their invaluable and truly inspiring contributions. So we are committed to support our clients with, change success, and we will be happy to support you with, your change projects. That's why we exist. So, use, the poll, if, you want to know more. So unfortunately, we won't have time for all the questions. And I can see in the Q and A that you have quite many, actually. So again, if you want, to know more, please, contact us. We will be happy to support you with, your ERP implementation. So we are almost at the end of this webinar. Thank you all for attending, for also your participation. So as mentioned at the beginning of the webinar, you will will receive a link to your email to access the replay. And if for some reason that doesn't come through, you will find the replay on our website tomorrow or the day after. So thank you again. See you soon for other ProSci events. Thank you. Thank you, Thank you. and bye. Goodbye.