What an ERP rollout teaches about people

I led ERP rollouts across six clients at MINEMAN Systems. The configuration was never what decided success.

What decided it was whether people kept using the old habits.

Where rollouts stall

• Procurement still emails requests instead of raising them in the system.
• The store keeps a private spreadsheet because it feels safer.
• Someone enters the same data twice, once for the system and once for their own records.

None of these are technical faults. They are trust gaps.

What worked

Manual data entry fell 65% once procurement, inventory, production and quality moved into SAP. The cut came from removing the reason for the second entry, not from telling people to stop.

The method is to sit with the person who keeps the spreadsheet and ask what it protects them from. Then build that protection into the system.

The rule I use now

Never retire the old tool until its owner tells you the new one is better.

A rollout is finished when nobody opens the old spreadsheet, not when the system goes live.