ERP Education: Losing Our Religion

By |January 17th, 2011|

Most ERP software packages are designed around industry-accepted business practices, operating philosophies, and techniques that have evolved over many years. Today, the issue is not businesses have a body of knowledge with supporting software tools; the question is, are clients educated enough to see the value or understand the proper use of the tools? The short answer is no.   Education versus ERP software training Many have lost sight of the difference between education and software tra [...]

Expert SAP Consulting to Reduce SAP TCO and Improve SAP ROI

By |January 10th, 2011|

  This is a follow-up to a previous post that introduced a fascinating study on expert performance (see Successful SAP Project Team Composition – Technicians or Experts?). The author insightfully noted that expert performance requires not experience alone, but a very special kind of experience. Expert performance requires a focused type of continuous achievement that goes beyond mere time of experience or practice. The study’s authors noted that the difference between the amateur and the [...]

How “As-Is” Process Mapping Can Damage Your SAP Project

By |January 3rd, 2011|

Not only can the "As-Is" process mapping damage your project, but it also adds significant amounts of unnecessary cost. Throughout my experience in SAP projects, I have participated in the "As-Is” and “To-Be” processing mapping exercises many times. Along the way, I learned a few key lessons. First, the old “As-Is” process mapping approach was (and is) critical for software engineering projects. As-Is process mapping efforts have very limited application to an SAP implementation-- or for that m [...]

SAP ERP Project Failures Lessons Learned and Mini Case Studies 3

By |December 27th, 2010|

  In this final installment on these lessons learned and mini case studies, we will look at a few older SAP project failures. Even in these older SAP project failures, many of the same problems continue to repeat themselves. I would like to point out once again that in the major SAP project failures the software application itself was not at the root of the failure. The project failures I focused on are the ones where there is plenty of published literature to evaluate. Obviously that do [...]

SAP ERP Project Failures Lessons Learned and Mini Case Studies 2

By |December 20th, 2010|

The following SAP ERP project failures cover the importance of testing, change management, training, senior management involvement, scope management, and quality of the consultants provided by ERP implementation vendors. With the exception of the inept, incompetent, or otherwise unqualified “con”sultants provided by some system integrators, you should note that these failure overviews illustrate many of the points made by Steve Phillips in the post on Software Consulting Firms and Clients Myths [...]

SAP ERP Project Failure Lessons Learned and Mini Case Studies 1

By |December 13th, 2010|

  The following SAP project failures are the first three of what we will review over the next few weeks. The SAP project failures we will review are high-profile examples with significant lessons to be learned. In nearly every case where the SAP implementation actually occurred, within one to two years after the troubled go-live, the SAP software itself was reasonably well-received and the business generally satisfied.   ================= One interesting feature of the SAP project fai [...]