Supply Chain: A Framework for Expanding the Human Resource Development Professional’s Role in Technology Implementations

Abstract

The problem and the solution. Billions of dollars have been spent on technology for the purpose of improving business productivity. The “spend” includes technology applications for enterprise resource planning systems,business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-business solutions, e-marketplaces, advanced planning systems, warehouse management systems, scan-based trading, and online catalogs. The problem for business is that the return on investment (ROI) for technology is unpredictable and frequently impedes improved business performance for a period of time; costs go up, service goes down, and inventory gets out of control.The problem for many human resource development (HRD) professionals is that their role in the implementation of technology is either nonexistent or limited to only organizing the software-training schedule. The opportunity for both improved technology ROI and getting HRD to play a larger role in overall performance improvement requires business teams and HRD professionals to gain a deeper understanding of supply-chain processes.This chapter presents a supply-chain framework that has had helped improve business performance and directly supports technology ROI.