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Chapter 9 • Organizational Change and Business Process Reengineering 263

CONCLUSION: WHAT WAS LEARNED?

•The demand planning system interfacing to legacy data from a large number of
systems that already did not talk well with each other was a root cause for misinfor-
mation and resulted in inadequate supply planning.
•The demand planning system was complex, and end users were not trained well
enough to use the system effectively.
•System testing was not well planned and “real” enough to find issues with legacy
system interfaces.
•The overall business plan for all the systems and reasons for taking on such a highly
complex implementation were well understood throughout the company. Thus, Nike
had exceptional “buy-in” for the project and was able to make adjustment in its
demand planning system and continue with the implementation. The goal was to
ensure business goals were achieved through the implementation, and not so much
to get the systems up and running.
•Nike exhibited patience in the implementation and learned from mistakes made early
in the process.
•Training was substantially increased for the ERP implementation. Customer service
representatives received 140–180 hours of training from Nike, and users were locked
out of the system until they completed the full training course.
•Business process reengineering was used effectively to clarify performance-based
goals for the implementation.

CASE QUESTIONS
•How could OPM3 have helped to identify the problems with implementing the
demand planning system?
•What were the three primary reasons Nike was successful with the ongoing ERP
implementation?
• Why was a phased rollout the correct decision for Nike?

Sources: Koch, C. (December 7, 2004). Nike Rebounds. CIO Australia’s magazine for executives.