Managing IT Change—Training and Education

While the transition from functional business applications to applications supporting integrated business process has dramatic impacts on virtually every function within the enterprise, these changes also have large impact on other business needs. Along with the need to take an integrated view of all business components, it is also important to recognize that many of these concepts are not simply extensions of current ways of thinking about business. Rather, they require significant training and education that go well beyond what has traditionally been provided. Today, with the cross-functional breadth of enterprise resource planning applications, the need for new approaches becomes mandatory if the organization is to realize the full potential that these applications can provide. While the design and administration of “training” has traditionally been considered an HR responsibility, it is critical to the organization that business leaders insist on designing and funding more fundamental education. The normally accepted role for management accountants has been focused on the use of company data to produce analyses and reports on the internal working of the enterprise. However, understanding the importance of this broader and more extensive definition of training, becomes part of this analysis, particularly as return-on-investment cases are developed and tracked as part of the justification for funding the change programs. These are all opportunities for more analytical approaches to management afforded by the conversion to integrated business system design and the implementation of enterprise resource planning applications.