NAVY ERP: An Analysis of Change Management

The Department of Defense DoD is an immense organization that utilizes thousands of business systems at a cost in the billions of dollars for the operation, maintenance, and modernization of these systems. During the past decade Enterprise Resource Planning ERP systems have become a primary focus within the DoD in an effort to minimize the amount of business systems, and bring about process integration across the Services. The DoD has invested billions of dollars toward the development and implementation of numerous ERPs in the past decade. Unfortunately, a few of these ERP implementations have resulted in failure, while a majority of other ERPs are experiencing cost overruns and schedule delays. With existing budget constraints it is imperative that the DoD conducts research to further the development of appropriate ERP implementation approaches. One key attribute of implementing an ERP is change management. Extensive private industry research has been conducted on change management and identifies change management as a critical success factor for any widespread organizational changes. ERPs fit this model and typically involve drastic organizational change. As the DoD seeks to enlarge and transform its enterprise, there is a need for change management research on recent DoD ERP implementations.