RELACIÓN DE LAS VARIABLES TONALIDAD Y LA TRANSMISIÓN DEL FILTRO

The analysis shows that the ERP vendor made a good implementation start-up. This can be seen from their enthusiasm during the demo sessions preparation and their offering of free training before implementation starts. Unlike the traditional practice, the ERP vendor was directly involved in playing, initially, a dual role as an ERP vendor and a consulting implementer. The ERP vendor communication, before and during the early phase of the implementation, can be seen as dynamic and effective with both DiversCo team as well as with the supervisory consultant.

The general manage stated

"The ERP vendor was a greater partner to us during early implementation stage. They have put us on track and guided us to lead in the start-up phase with confidence"

5.2.2.5.2 Poor Handover to the Second Implementor

This strong bond between the implementation consulting team and the ERP vendor ensured that the implementation progressed smoothly until the ERP vendor ownership evolved. The support channel between the ERP vendor and consulting firm was completely lost and, as a result, the DiversCo ended up complete puzzled as to who they should contact for the ERP support they needed. The remarkable observation is that there was no consideration for DiversCo requirements during the merger process between ERP vendors. In other words, they were not considered as an influencing

stakeholder in such a process. This can be noticed from the method the ERP vendor used to communicate such change, which was only an e-mailed letter sent to DiversCo pointing out that implementation invoices need to be directed to a new firm as they had become the official representative. The consulting team members who had been involved from the vendor side disappeared from the implementation scene.

The reasons for merger and acquisition between ERP vendors can be seen as legitimate, including strengthening their financial position, gaining more market share, improving operations efficiencies and meeting the global expansion needs. However, despite these benefits, it also created adverse effects to the DiversCo implementation. There was no proper hand over or formal transition of the project between the new and the old implementation team from the vendor side. The lack of transparency and the complete ignorance of existing ERP customers‟ obligations is a fundamental ERP vendor mistake. The absence of proper coordination between the new and old consulting teams who handled the implementation was a complete responsibility of the ERP vendor, as they should have ensured that targeted acquisition benefits should not come at the expense of jeopardising on-going implementation projects. The general manager commented:

"It's a complete ERP vendor responsibility to communicate with us a client with transparency and honesty any organisational changes that has direct effect on the implementation"

The main lesson learned is that the ERP vendor should have developed a transition plan that removed the risk of negative impact on the on-going implementation projects. The behaviour of the ERP vendor was not ethically acceptable. A former ERP consultant from the ERP vendor side chose to resign to avoid being involved in such practice. He explains that he had either to hide the truth to the customer, which is non-ethical practice, or was to tell the customer the truth, which would offend his employer. He also refused to join the customer as an independent consultant out of respect, as the customer was still part of his former employer customer list. The former consultant from the vendor‟s side expressed:

"I walked away because I couldn't watch my previous customer suffering from such inappropriate practice but in the same time it's going against my ethical values if I make business from my former employer customers, therefore I decided to change my job completely and transfer to a new post not related to the same ERP vendor applications"

The transition between the first and the second consulting teams created adverse effects for the implementation. There was a roles and responsibilities gap between the implementation parties, which resulted from the disengagement of DiversCo from the transition process. Such a gap and its subsequent conflict would have been avoided if DiversCo was engaged fully in this transition, including a proper verification of unpaid bills and pending technical support issues that not resolved. Unfortunately, such a transition was not dealt with by the consulting firm as a process; only generic e-mails were sent to the anonymous list, including DiversCo, informing them that a new implementor had been appointed to receive the upcoming payments and inquiries. At the time of this announcement, DiversCo had several unclosed technical support requests for several months until DiversCo decided to freeze the ERP payments. The new implementer, thereafter, requested to meet with DiversCo not to resolve those pending support issues but rather to chase what they considered as due bills. It was expected by the new implementer to arrange a meeting with ERP vendor and DiversCo as a client to determine precisely the implementation status including all due bills and pending implementation problems, however, the new implementer chose to penalise DiversCo by ignoring all pending support requests as a silent punishment for not paying the perceived due bills.

The CEO of the new implementor offered this description:

"Once we realised that DiversCo was not willing to pay due bills, we decided the turn off the tap i.e. to discontinue the delivering the consulting services"

The situation could have been much better if the new implementor has communicated, at the time of accepting the task from ERP vendor, their understanding of considering the implementation as complete, where both the new implementor and the ERP vendor, along with DiversCo as a client, would have reached a mutually beneficial agreement. The finance manager explained:

"If both ERP vendor & new implementor were clear to us from the beginning that ignoring resolving implementation problems is connected to payments; or if they stated clearly that they will discontinue the support, we could have developed fair solutions that assures a win/win type of agreements and saved considerable cost; and huge implementation delay would have been avoided"

5.2.2.6.3 ERP vs. Off-the-Shelf Software Packages

ERP is, by nature, a long-term investment by the organisation, where the relationship with its ERP related vendor is expected to be long-term. The software license represents only a small part of the value that ERP customer pursues. The more critical parts include the services, processes, best practices and the global network of ERP vendor support agencies. However, the ERP vendor behaviour in DiversCo case demonstrates very low consideration of what they have sold to the customer. The long-term commitment from the ERP vendor side seems to be missing; in fact, the transition between the old and new consulting team of confining their relation with the customer to chase invoices for in-completed ERP tasks demonstrate that the ERP vendor is not considering that they are selling a strategic solution that calls for long- term services and enhancements and the software license represents only a small part. The GM of DiversCo offers the following explanation:

"This claim by ERP vendor and its consequences uncover to us as a client the fact that ERP vendor, through the newly appointed partner, deal with ERP as if it is an off-the-shelf type of product rather than a providing strategic IS solution".