Simply put, the letters "ERP" often have a negative connotation associated with them. Why? Because the typical ERP package contains handfuls of modules all designed to address different aspects of your business. Everything from better managing your supply chain to organizing your shop floor to optimizing your inventory to managing your company's financials & HR. With all of these different areas looking to integrate with each other, one can easily see how problems, and potential "failures," may arise.
There are countless stories of failed ERP implementations, many of which get noteable press, that often scare people away from attempting an ERP implementation in their business. And, because of how big SAP is, many of these stories involve SAP. But SAP is not alone in the failed ERP implementation category. Oracle, JD Edwards, Epicor, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics (formerly Great Plains), and Netsuite all round out the top 20 failed ERP implementations list.
One example of a failed ERP implementation was Marin County vs. SAP & Deloitte. In this specific case, SAP's enterprise ERP was being implemented to help the Marin County goverment run better. The implementation "went south," however, the dispute was settled outside of court. What's most interesting about this case, is that while Marin County initially decided that they were going to "rip & replace" the system, they quickly reversed that decision, and are still using the disputed software. And what's even more interesting, is when one reads the legal documentation pertaining to this case, you will quickly find that Marin County's "beef" was not with the software. In fact, they were in love with the broad functionality offered by SAP. They had simply taken issue with how their instance of SAP was installed.
So, why do ERP implementations fail? What factors top the list of CIOs and consultants?
The first and foremost reason, is that companies all-to-often set unrealistic expections from the get-go. Second, companies also fail to appropriately manage organizational change. This is followed closely by the third reason; when companies fail to involve key stakeholders from each department at every step of the process. Last, but most certainly not least, (especially when dozens more reasons could be added to the list of how ERP implementations can fail), is when businesses fail to manage the business benefits of what an ERP platform brings to the table.
Want to read more? Download a whitepaper that discusses these reasons in full. This whitepaper was written by Ziff Davis, an independent, 3rd party ERP and technology evaluation firm.
Navigator, one of SAP's top US partners, and SAP's #1 Global Partner for SAP Business ByDesign prides itself on making each customer a best run business. In fact, Navigator has a proven track record of implementing SAP ERP on-time and on-budget more than 97% of the time.
ERP platforms like SAP Business One and SAP Business ByDesign can revolutionize how your small-midsize business can run. Built from the ground up, specifically for the SME market, on more than 40 years of tried and true best business practices, these solutions can help you reduce your internal infrastructure, streamline your operations, accelerate profitable growth, and scale with your business as it grows.
In addition, these solutions can be deployed both in a traditional on-premise scenario, in a hybrid cloud environment, or as a completely hosted or SaaS (software-as-a-service) environment.
To learn more, click here. To register for Navigator's next live demo, hosted every Friday at 11:00 AM EST, visit http://nbs-us.com/demos.
