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Why Asset Management System Implementations Fail

Why Asset Management System Implementations Fail - Part I

I was reading about the decision by Marin County CA to walk away from a $30 million investment in an Enterprise Resource Planning system after

outside consultants claimed it and wasnrsquot worth the cost to fix the problems

A Case Study of Asset Management Implementation Gone Wrong

This asset management implementation disaster is destined to become a case study for graduate bu-siness programs because the parties failed to set the customers expectations but also because Marin County and Deloitte Consulting were blaming each other while the software vendor SAP took little or no responsibility for its products

The sad part is they all lost Marin County adminis-trators for not thinking through their idea Deloitte Consulting for a lack of vision and skill and lastly SAPrsquos image for having a product that is difficult to implement

The Root Cause of Asset Management System Software Implementation Failure

Contrary to popular belief asking who is to blame for the failed implementation is not the question that customers software vendors or consulting compa-nies should be asking 50-90 of implementations fail for software packages such as an EAM ERP CBM CMMS IWMS CIFM FMIS or any other type of asset management tool because Sales sold a pro-duct that could not realistically meet the customerrsquos expectations

What do customer expectations have to do with this In short EVERYTHING Successfully implementing asset management system software means that the customer is happy with the results It does not mean that everything works perfectly Although this would be nice there are countless points of failure during the course of an implementation As a result the customers and vendor expectations must be ma-naged from beginning to end

If you fail to realize that setting expectations is the true cornerstone of communication then you are doomed to repeat your errors over and over again Purchasing and setting up an asset management software is not like buying a box of cereal It requires work and a substantial amount of time

This is the first of a multi-part series that every ven-dor potential customer and consulting company should memorize At the end of the series a new

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Why Asset Management System Implementations Fail

opportunity will be presented that may change the way asset management software is sold

Setting expectations is part of the overall commu-nication process To better understand the pivotal role of communications let us first define the role of the key players in the decision to purchase asset management system software Although roles may vary or change over the course of the sale and im-plementation it is absolutely mission critical that buy-in is achieved from the customer at all levels in their organization

In order for this to be accomplished decision makers for the customer must actively engage in open com-munication with end users as well as other depart-ments whose resources will be needed (ex facilities staff accounting purchasing IT) Without buy-in the EAMCMMS system is just another tool forced upon staff that will not be set-up or used correctly

The Sales Executive

Salespeople are driven to produce results Their goal is to either create a need or guide a potential clientrsquos needs to their product Sales for big ticket items are usually relationship based It is the relationship building that forms the bond of trust as well as set-ting the early customer and vendor expectations

As the sales cycle progresses salespeople are res-ponsible for setting the table as they must match customer expectationsneeds with the product they represent Sales needs to present realistic vendor expectations to the customer Vendor executives should not be wondering what was promised du-ring the sale

The Executive or Decision Makers

The Executive or decision makers are the person or group that can define the top level need (pain) for an organization They are the initial line of communi-cation to the vendor or third party consultant Most importantly the decision maker(s) are the person(s) accountable for achieving buy-in throughout the company

The other major role of the decision maker is to ensure that there are enough internal resources to complete the project before the asset management system software is purchased This includes but is not limited to

bull Assigning a project manager or putting to-gether a team for the implementation

bull Making sure work flow processes are un-derstood This information determines where the bottlenecks are The problems identified will be among the first expecta-tions given to the vendor

bull Making sure time and money is available for asset detail set-up It may take several months or longer to collect and enter in as-set detail for tens of thousands of assets

bull Making sure time and money is available for staff training For example maintenance staff will be the heaviest users of a CMMS but they are always busy (otherwise you would not need help) What is the plan to free up their time

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Why Asset Management System Implementations Fail

Operations - Client

This is the software implementation team who share responsibility with the vendor andor systems inte-gration consultants to make the asset management system work Ideally this group represents all of the areas to be impacted by the asset management system software including maintenance staff plan-ners engineers and management

It is very important that this function is not dele-gated to outside consultants because true buy-in comes from participating in the process to make things better In addition this is the group that will assume the role of continually improving workflow and processes for asset management

Operations - Vendor

This group includes the project manager EAMCMMS trainers technical support and any other resource needed to meetexceed customer expec-tations This group of individuals is responsible for understanding what was sold and how to deliver it

Ultimate responsibility for a successful implementa-tion falls squarely on the vendor Having a good pro-duct doesnrsquot do much if you canrsquot make it work the way a client wants Actions of the client or consulting group may be the cause of a failed implementation but it is the vendors name on the product

The Consultant or Third Party

Consultants if used essentially play the role of pro-ject management They are responsible for making sure that customer expectations and vendor product are set up correctly to achieve the desired goals Whether consultants act as pure facilitators guides or are contracted to perform the actual set-up of the system is irrelevant However it is critical that consultants understand the expectations of both customer and vendor

Now that the general roles of the key players has been outlined the next step is to understand why setting the proper expectations are important to all the parties involved Our next post will cover why and how to set expectations between client vendor andor a third party

If you liked this article you may also want to read

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