Picture a small manufacturing company. The warehouse supervisor knows the stock operation inside out — every exception, every workaround, every quirk. But when the ERP (enterprise resource planning) project kicks off, management assigns the accounting manager as owner of the inventory module. The warehouse supervisor is never invited to the meetings. The accounting manager does not know how the warehouse actually runs. Six months later the system goes live. Stock counts are off, orders are delayed, and workers quietly go back to the paper ledger. The software is not the problem. The problem was putting the wrong person in charge from day one.
In ERP projects, every major business area needs a ‘process owner.’ The term sounds formal, but the idea is simple: a process owner is the person who both understands how a business area works and has enough authority to make decisions about it. The purchasing process might belong to the purchasing manager. The production process might belong to the shop floor supervisor. The accounting process might belong to the chief accountant. But titles alone do not settle the question. What matters is what the person actually knows and what they can actually do.
Three things should be present in any process owner. First, real working knowledge. This person must know the daily flow of their department — not just the clean version, but the exceptions, the busy periods, the workarounds. They should be able to say ‘normally we do it this way, but at month-end this other situation comes up.’ Second, authority. They must be able to gather information from their team and make small decisions without escalating every single question to the general manager. A process owner who has to ask permission for everything slows the whole project down. Third, the ability to communicate. They do not need to understand technical software jargon, but they must be able to ask questions when they do not understand something, and they must be able to explain their department’s needs clearly to the implementation consultant.
What happens when the wrong person is chosen? A very common pattern: the owner of the business assigns a trusted senior manager as process owner for every single module. This person is sharp and experienced. But they can spare only two hours a week for the project. The consultant needs a decision clarified and waits three days for an answer. Meetings get postponed. The software firm cannot keep to its own schedule. The project timeline slips. Intelligence and seniority are not enough — availability matters just as much.
Another frequent mistake goes in the opposite direction. A young employee is made process owner because ‘they are good with computers.’ But this person cannot hold their ground when a senior colleague says ‘we have always done it this way and there is no need to change.’ The experienced staff ignore the process owner’s requests. Information never flows properly to the consultant. The process owner needs standing within the department — people must actually listen to them. A process owner without the respect of their own team cannot do the job.
A few practical questions help identify the right candidate. Does this person truly know how the department operates day to day, or do they only manage it from a distance? How many hours per week can they realistically commit? Does their team listen to them? Can they attend working sessions with the software firm’s consultants? And critically — does the business owner actually delegate authority to them, or does every real decision still come back to the top? If the answers point in the wrong direction, that person should not be the process owner. Keep looking.
One last point: process owner assignments can be changed. If an early choice turns out to be wrong, it is possible to correct it. But the earlier the correction, the easier it is. As the project moves forward, replacing a process owner becomes increasingly disruptive. If the implementation consultant is not raising this topic with you directly, raise it yourself. Ask them plainly: ‘Are our process owners the right people?’ The answer may surprise you — and it is better to be surprised early than to find out after go-live.
This article was originally written in Turkish by Gökhan MERCANOĞLU on April 21, 2003 and has been automatically translated into English and other languages using machine translation.