Sorry for the delay – my experience of ERP implementations (both doing them from scratch and turning round ones that have gone astray) chimes with yours.

A common theme – and one that you have identified – is over-promising at sales time and then under-delivering.

I liked you car analogy – I took a similar approach in my article A bad workman blames his [Business Intelligence] tools. I think the same conclusion applies, in the same way that there are few bad BI tools but many bad BI projects, there are few bad ERP systems, but many ERP implementations that fail to deliver the anticipated value.

The reasons for these problems lies with the people involved, both internal and external.

Peter

I was just waiting for your take on my view (what I have written).

Appreciate your input.

Thank you
Pavan

Appreciate your comments on what I have written.

Thank you
Pavan Kumar
IT Manager

Thank you for taking the time to comment co comprehensively.

Let me take some time to digest the points that you have made and respond.

All the best

Peter

I am ex-employee of Big 4.

I agree that the CFOs and CEOs are infuriated by ERP (IT).

One thing I would like to tell here is that the Tool( ERP – SAP or ORACLE) are not that bad as they are presented when things go wrong.

The whole problem is that there is no Clarity & Co-ordination among the IT Vendor (Implementation Partner – who is doing the implementation or application support after the implementation or doing the upgrade) and Customer who is implementing.

A Car Sales Personnel knows what he is lying about but not an IT Sales Personnel.

For getting a Contract / Purchase Order for ERP (IT) Implementation / Upgrade / Support the IT Vendors show 100% commitment and they (It Vendors) will be ready to move earth and sky in order to get the order or prove he is worth to get the order and they get their Top Management Commitment also.

Unfortunately we do not find the same commitment not even 20% during the ERP (IT) Project. If anything goes wrong it is only blame game.

The expectations are to be set right by the ERP (IT)Product / Service Vendor. Let the Customer know what is possible and what is not possible. IT Service Vendor should opt for a real time domain / ERP (IT) experienced team, realistic approach and time lines for the implementation of the required scope.

On day one of Go-Live Users (Customer) should bask in the comfort of the ERP but should not feel the pain in the neck.

Customers also pat their back for getting the ERP Implementation / Upgrade / Support service for less one thing they do not understand is that if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

Customers can negotiate on the products (sap or oracle or ms dynamics)and hardware costs but should not go out of the way in negotiating the service costs because regardless what it is the tangible items (product or hardware) remains the same but in case of service it will not be. One more thing is that when you buy a Merc or BMW you have to get it serviced at Authorized service center not at local service station unless you know the service center very well.

If you go to Merc / BMW service center and ask for less expensive price they do it but instead of a required 110 point check they will do a 30 point check.

These are few of the things one should take care before / after evaluation / implementation / upgrade / support of ERP (IT).

Then definitely you will get there.

The products are not a failure in a whole they may jut lag few / some things that does not mean they are failure. It is the Implementation Partners that are making the products fail.

If the product would have been a failure it will failure everywhere and will not be successful in some places (which it is now).

You buy a car and you do not get a good driver and you learn from a bad driver to drive your Merc / BMW then please do not blame Merc / BMW for that. Same hold good for ERP products as well. Even a Merc / BMW will not keep a customer 100% satisfied but still they are one of the known brands across the globe.

There is almost 60 % of ERP implementations are failures. it would have been 100% if the ERP product is a pain in the neck.

IT works on logic we need right people to do that. If you get that it will definitely work well.

Btw there is only 20 to 30% of cream in IT the rest are average or just pushing on.

Thank you
Pavan
IT Manager

Thank you for your comments. I was thinking the other day that I don’t know the origin of the ERP phrase. Presumably it was dreamt up to differentiate the broader-based systems spreading their tentacles into areas such as supply-chains from the narrower accounting ones from which they sprang. No idea who first coined the term though – I always thought that it was a poor description of the area.

Peter

Hey, maybe all we need a QuickBooks “Enterprise Edition.” (ha ha).

We have to be careful not to “blame the victim.” ERP ought to be sufficiently configurable to meet the honest-to-goodness requirements of the business.

Then things started to get complicated and maybe over-engineered. Maybe SOA will help to provide some simplicity – but equally it could just make things more complex yet – the jury is out on that one.

Peter

* I have no idea what their software is like now, nor how long implementations take. Also I should stress that I have no affiliation with them whatsoever, lest people thought otherwise.

With standardized XML schemas for datatypes, web services that can be *generated* and freely downloadable business process models, you just won’t need to *buy* an ERP.

The datatypes need to remain static. The models and the UI can and *should* be customized easily and to the heart’s content.

A company’s ERP application should be created/customized by END USERS with about a day & half of training to get started and not by rip off artists that charge $300/hour for a “functional” (lol) consultant and $200/hour “ABAP” programmer. BTW, is ABAP programmer and oxymoron?

ERP is IT run by MBAs. Hence, the disaster. Hence, the billions upon billions squandered on tables & columns with funny names, code written programming language from the dark ages, embedded & opaque business processes and end-user interface from hell.