Information System

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For example, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) aims to update part of their hospital IT system. It seems that no one could make sure about the merits or performance of the new system, so a pilot is set up that only involves one hospital. If the pilot does not come up to expectations, then the project stops, on the other hand, if come to success, the IT system is likely to rolled out to every hospital so that it can improve the effectiveness of national health care system in United Kingdom.

d. Cut-over Conversion

According to Houston Neal (2010), in the cut-over approach, the old system is removed and the new one puts in its place all at once when the new system is implemented and tested. After the planning activities have been successfully reached, the legacy system will stop, and the new system will be launch.

This is a risky strategy as any issue with the new system may come up and there is no turning back, which may attribute to the higher rate of risk and lead to the failure in ERP implementation. However, the cut-over conversion is inexpensive, if successful, the benefits of the entire new system are immediately realised.

2.1 Comparison among four implementation approaches

The choice of which implementation strategy to use will depend on the nature of the system. Each approach has merit and all of them have disadvantages.

- Cost

The major trade-off in the implementation process is cost. It is believed that costs of the cut-over method are much lower than a long implementation which has a drawn-out period for changeover. Parallel conversion is the most expensive implementation method. It is worth to notice that organisations can not forecast cost overruns of cut-over, so parallel method has become decreasingly popular because of high costs. Despite the benefits of the pilot implementation, it has been expensive both in money and time because the operators need to focus more on the whole process of implementation and evaluation.

- Risk

It is noticed that there are several unpredictable things that could make mistakes in an instant and quick changeover in the cut-over conversion. The attraction of the phased method is that companies could gain knowledge and experience during the sub-implementation phase that can be applied to subsequent phased, which offers of the controlled management of risk (Houston Neal, 2010). If a module does not work, then the legacy system can continue its work. But it is likely that the phased method is not as focused and urgent as the cut over method, noted by Kamal Khanna (2012). As it mentioned above, the parallel adoption is thought to be the least risky approach due to its manipulation of both systems. A pilot implementation minimises risk at the rest of the organisation because it is unaffected by the pilot.

- Time of the changeover

The implementation of cut over conversion is quick than a long drawn-out phased approach. As for the phased method, more time is available for adjustments and the adaptation, however, it may take a long time for operators to follow every module. The pace of the changeover for the parallel conversion is slower than cut over, but faster than phased method. A pilot implementation may waste time to run the pilot which attributed to higher costs and time taken up by staff to evaluate the unsuccessful system.

- User adaptation

In cut over conversion, employees do not have time to learn the new system, however, the organisations only need to train the staff on the new system, not the both old and new system, which can increase the efficiency. It is likely that the technical staff can focus on one instance of the system in different module. On the other hand, there is no changeover period. Similarity, parallel implementation method is much easier than cut over, but more difficult than phased adoption.

- Efficiency

It seems that having employees enter business data in both the old and new systems is not efficient,. There may be some hardware or software that both systems need to use in a same time, which duplicates effort and costs time and money. Furthermore, the pilot must be designed to be representative and it takes effort to plan a pilot and to evaluate the qualities of the pilot systems.

3. Context of organisations and technology for ERP Implementation

An ERP system is the most complex system today within the information systems. It includes many applications that support many organisational processes. The context of organisation and technology for ERP implementation must be analysed in the project.

- Flexibility

ERP systems are required a good flexibility in order to meet the changes of internal and external business environment. Flexibility is a kind of capability to adapt new and unique needs of users, which includes: Parametric flexibility, Code changes, Module addition, Connectivity to other systems (Chang, 2006). As the business environment changes over time, organisations should realise that improving the technology structure is a effective way to reap competitive merits , while the system itself is able to adjust readily to different business conditions.

- Technological Infrastructure

An ERP system is essentially a huge database which based on advanced technology. most of the organisations, the changes of the system requires the technology improvement of replacement for the existing system structure. This activity increases the risk level of the project since it involves an additional capital investment, appropriate personnel skills and even the possibility of a temporary shutdown of business. However, with the success of ERP establishment, it is likely to enhance the performance of ERP systems thus decreasing the risk within the business process. Due to the importance of technology, the activities relevant to infrastructure changes, for instance, the identification of new technology, must be incorporated in the ERP systems.

- Organisational Process Changes

Once an ERP project is implemented, there probably may be a massive change of information process. Generally, changes in organisation information process is difficult to cope with, for both user and organisation, especially the coordinators need to figure out different issues from different department and to improve the management performance