Managing IT Change—Training and Education

• Author: Thomas R. Weirich,,Art Worster,Frank Andera
• Date: 01 October 2016
• Published date: 01 October 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jcaf.22202

73

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI 10.1002/jcaf.22202

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Managing IT Change—Training

andEducation

Art Worster, Thomas R. Weirich, and Frank Andera

In past articles

published in this

series of JCAF, we

discussed factors that

determine success or

failure of enterprise

resource planning

(ERP) programs

measured by antici-

pated returns on

investment, on which

many of these pro-

grams are based. This

discussion has been

from the perspective

of what management

accountants need to

know about these

applications and how

their involvement is

critical to success.

We described how

HR (“Managing IT

Change—A New

Role for HR,” JCAF,

November/December

2015) becomes an

integrated part of

overall business pro-

cesses, whereas in the

past it was more iso-

lated. The discussion

demonstrated where

HR may become

part of business

operations rather

than a separate staff

function.

In an article

on Manufactur-

ing (“Managing

IT Change—Fully

Integrated Manu-

facturing: Impacts

on Manufacturing,”

JCAF, January/

February 2016), we

discussed what has,

in the past, seemed

to be independent

aspects of manufac-

turing design which

now has become

an integral part

of business plan-

ning and review

processes. Descrip-

tions were made on

While the transition from functional business

applications to applications supporting integrated

business process has dramatic impacts on virtu-

ally every function within the enterprise, these

changes also have large impact on other busi-

ness 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 pro-

vided. 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 educa-

tion. 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-invest-

ment cases are developed and tracked as part of

the justification for funding the change programs.

These are all opportunities for more analytical

Editorial Review

This is the seventh install-

ment in a series of articles

that have appeared and will

appear in the coming issues

of JCAF. Art Worster and

his associates, Thomas R.

Weirich and Frank Andera,

address matters that arise

during and after the imple-

mentation of integrated IT

applications in a business.