Education:

Most companies are only using a fraction of their ERP system and only understand the tip of the iceberg with repsect to it’s functionality. Continuing education for end users is one factor that is often overlooked.   This continuing education is often overlooked mostly because of time and budgets.   People have jobs to do and in today’s work environment it is difficult to steal them away for 2-3 days for training.  This training is critical  because when upgrades are rolled out, there are many new features that are not acknowledged or implemented because of lack of End User knowledge. Also, when there is End User turnover, most companies do not have a formal education in place for new users. New employees are just taught the bare necessities to be able to get their job done.

I believe at a minimum annual training for the end users. This training should also review business processes. It is important to involve all departments so they can see how their processes directly affect others. Obviously when there are upgrades, training should be done to educate users on new features and functionality. It is also a good idea to have “Power Users” in each department who can be act as an internal training resource, who know the tool inside-and-out.  The power user should be trained quarterly on new functionality and how to utilize tools such as report writers, ad-hoc query tools, and interface customization.

It is also beneficial for users to attend user groups and annual conferences.   These user groups typically attended by IT staff, but end users many times achieve more knowledge and useful information to put to work right away.

In summary,  continuous improvement and ERP usage will only grow with education.  Most users have no idea what their ERP system can do for them and educating them on it’s capabilities will be well worth the investment.