ERP Backlash Coming Soon to a Company Near You
ERP software implementations can be painful—crazy expensive for the business, enormously complex for IT grunts, and annoying to change-averse users. Some see ERP as a necessary evil that enables 21st century companies to achieve competitive similarity with one another.
Print
At best, these grueling ERP rollouts deliver a back-office system that will bore any sane person to tears. At worst, they can be costly and embarrassing corporate blunders that leave board members or shareholders asking: "What the hell happened to that IT project?" (Don't believe me? Just ask bedding manufacturer Select Comfort why it suddenly halted its SAP ERP rollout.)
Your chances of ERP success? Not good, my friend. Today's ERP rollout has only a 7 percent chance of coming in on time, will probably cost more than what you estimated, and will likely deliver very unsatisfying results.
And all for what? Do you think the average user gets excited about a new ERP system? No way. "This back-office automation stuff—nobody gets excited about it," says Ray Wang, a VP and principal analyst at Forrester. "For the user, it's just one more form they've got to fill." It's no wonder, then, that there's a slightly better than 50 percent chance that users will want to use and, indeed, actually use the ERP application once it's in house.
So who likes ERP systems? Business managers and bean counters. "It is very hard to get excited about back-office [ERP] projects, unless you're a manager," Wang adds, "because it's designed to automate tasks so that managers get better visibility."
But that's all going to change this year. It has to. And it's not just because the economy is in the Dumpster.
There have been too many enterprise software blowups during the last 20 or so years (that we know about), and in Wang's estimation, there really haven't been any improvements as of late in ERP project management. "I don't know if there is any change in the level of success or failure," he says. "My guess is that companies are putting these systems in begrudgingly. And if there's a failure, they're going to cover it up."
Plus, businesses have a growing number of alternatives to the traditional on-premise ERP "solution"—viable, mostly stable and easier-to-install applications that cost much less than those offered by big ERP vendors. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP options are expanding and becoming too irresistible for business users (and IT staffs) to ignore much longer. Even more radical, some new-age ERP vendors, such as IFS, are building future ERP software releases with Gen Y users in mind—not just the bean counters. Think Facebook and Twitter (minus the incriminating photos).
In addition, 2009 could be the year that open-source ERP apps finally get a second look from corporate America. Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Vince Kellen claims that open source will get a "second chance to get a toe in the door" in the coming year. "Initially, 2009 adopters will look for focused or niche applications, including office software for desktops, rather than 'rip and replace' ERP swap-outs," Kellen notes in a Cutter opinion piece. "However, I wouldn't be surprised if a few more early adopters attempt large-scale open source ERP."
Right now, it's essential that CIOs and IT managers spend less time on ERP RFPs, integration headaches and implementation schedules, and more time working hand in hand with business stakeholders on what is needed from IT to
Previous Post: Salesforce.com Nailed for Downtime: But Your In-House CRM and ERP Record...Next Post: Prediction Software: The New Science Behind the Art of Making Hit Movies
Most Discussed Posts
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the most significant game changers to hit the technology landscape in the past 20 years. With this massive expansion of the cloud, the perception of the IT organization is shifting from a utility player to a change agent. This eBook breaks down five ways progressive organizations are using cloud-based IT Management solutions to help drive innovation and become more strategic, including: adding visibility and analytics, speeding up time-to-value, lowering costs, improving prioritization, and providing a blueprint for future cloud deployments.
Read the white paper to see how IBM helped Citigroup deliver new services and enhancements to their 200 million customers faster.
There are 3 ways to modernize legacy applications: rewrite completely, acquire packaged solutions or migrate existing code. This paper explains why it's best to migrate and how IBM® Rational® software can help.
Accommodating specific lines of business can result in a hybrid ecosystem of applications and servers. The resulting complexity of this architecture makes for an environment that is costly to maintain and difficult to change when addressing new challenges.
This whitepaper will help you to define a mobile device passcode policy. Security managers must attempt to reconcile two opposing goals. They must: 1) create a passcode policy that is strong enough to protect the device if it is lost or stolen, while: 2) not annoying users with needless length or complexity.
This whitepaper, authored by The Radicati Group, looks at the key reasons organizations should consider moving to a cloud-based archiving solution. Email archiving solutions enable organizations to store, monitor, and collect electronic data exchanged by their users to comply with internal policies and regulations.
ATERNITY will showcase a 30-minute demo on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging its award-winning FPI Platform to deliver a user-centric approach to Proactive IT Management.
For businesses to move forward and tap into the ever-expanding universe of Internet users and network-enabled devices, it's critical to learn how to make the transition to IPv6. Learn the critical steps your organization must take to make a seamless transition-and keep your business world connected.
Learn how IT teams can protect against spear phishing tactics. Harry Sverdlove, chief technology officer of Bit9 offers a frank discussion about spear phishing - the most common technique used in today's advanced attacks.
Learn how to build a solid business case for your migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so you can run leaner, innovate faster, be more flexible and own the New Now.
Social media isn't about you; it's about everything around you. As you consider how your customers want to communicate with you, social media is something that can't be ignored. But what should your strategy be? Is social media "just another channel?" What kind of a plan makes sense for your contact center and for your customers? Join our experts as they share their insight and research results.
Hardware tokens were a popular method of strong authentication in past years but the cumbersome provisioning and distribution tasks, high support requirements and replacement costs have limited their growth. The additional log-in steps that hardware tokens require and the resulting user frustrations have limited adoption and make them impractical for larger scale partner and customer applications.
Sponsored Links
