“Big Data. The size, complexity of formats and speed of delivery exceeds the capabilities of traditional data management technologies; it requires the use of new or exotic technologies simply to manage the volume alone. Many new technologies are emerging, with the potential to be disruptive (e.g., in-memory DBMS). Analytics has become a major driving application for data warehousing, with the use of MapReduce outside and inside the DBMS, and the use of self-service data marts. One major implication of big data is that in the future users will not be able to put all useful information into a single data warehouse. Logical data warehouses bringing together information from multiple sources as needed will replace the single data warehouse model. 

In-Memory Computing. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. In addition, it offers a new layer of the memory hierarchy in servers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Besides delivering a new storage tier, the availability of large amounts of memory is driving new application models. In-memory applications platforms include in-memory analytics, event processing platforms, in-memory application servers, in-memory data management and in-memory messaging.

Running existing applications in-memory or refactoring these applications to exploit in-memory approaches can result in improved transactional application performance and scalability, lower latency (less than one microsecond) application messaging, dramatically faster batch execution and faster response time in analytical applications. As cost and availability of memory intensive hardware platforms reach tipping points in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will enter the mainstream.

Extreme Low-Energy Servers. The adoption of low-energy servers — the radical new systems being proposed, announced and marketed by mostly new entrants to the server business —will take the buyer on a trip backward in time. These systems are built on low-power processors typically used in mobile devices. The potential advantage is delivering 30 times or more processors in a particular server unit with lower power consumption vs. current server approaches. The new approach is well suited for certain non-compute intensive tasks such as map/reduce workloads or delivery of static objects to a website. However, most applications will require more processing power, and the low-energy server model potentially increases management costs, undercutting broader use of the approach.”

And you thought life could be boring! Well – there is one more trend coming up next week.

Until next time then, have a good rest and a joyous festive season – and remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult.  He has been involved with business management systems for many years.  He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard.   Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

“Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as sensors and intelligence are added to physical items such as consumer devices or physical assets and these objects are connected to the Internet. The vision and concept have existed for years, however, there has been an acceleration in the number and types of things that are being connected and in the technologies for identifying, sensing and communicating. These technologies are reaching critical mass and an economic tipping point over the next few years. Key elements of the IoT include:

•                   Embedded sensors: Sensors that detect and communicate changes are being embedded, not just in mobile devices, but in an increasing number of places and objects.
•                   Image Recognition: Image recognition technologies strive to identify objects, people, buildings, places logos, and anything else that has value to consumers and enterprises. Smartphones and tablets equipped with cameras have pushed this technology from mainly industrial applications to broad consumer and enterprise applications.
•                   Near Field Communication (NFC) payment: NFC allows users to make payments by waving their mobile phone in front of a compatible reader. Once NFC is embedded in a critical mass of phones for payment, industries such as public transportation, airlines, retail and healthcare can explore other areas in which NFC technology can improve efficiency and customer service.

App Stores and Marketplaces. Application stores by Apple and Android provide marketplaces where hundreds of thousands of applications are available to mobile users. Gartner forecasts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. This will grow from a consumer-only phenomena to an enterprise focus. With enterprise app stores, the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support entrepreneurs. Enterprises should use a managed diversity approach to focus on app store efforts and segment apps by risk and value.

Next-Generation Analytics. Analytics is growing along three key dimensions:

From traditional offline analytics to in-line embedded analytics. This has been the focus for many efforts in the past and will continue to be an important focus for analytics.

From analyzing historical data to explain what happened to analyzing historical and real-time data from multiple systems to simulate and predict the future.

Over the next three years, analytics will mature along a third dimension, from structured and simple data analyzed by individuals to analysis of complex information of many types (text, video, etc…) from many systems supporting a collaborative decision process that brings multiple people together to analyze, brainstorm and make decisions.

Analytics is also beginning to shift to the cloud and exploit cloud resources for high performance and grid computing.

In 2011 and 2012, analytics will increasingly focus on decisions and collaboration. The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action.”

As they say in IT – never a dull moment! Until next time then, remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult.  He has been involved with business management systems for many years.  He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard.   Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

“Media Tablets and Beyond. Users can choose between various form factors when it comes to mobile computing. No single platform, form factor or technology will dominate and companies should expect to manage a diverse environment with two to four intelligent clients through 2015. IT leaders need a managed diversity program to address multiple form factors, as well as employees bringing their own smartphones and tablet devices into the workplace.” In short, anyone building a mobile app must ensure it works on many different platforms – not an easy task.

Gartner continues: “Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces. The user interface (IU) paradigm in place for more than 20 years is changing. UIs with windows, icons, menus, and pointers will be replaced by mobile-centric interfaces emphasizing touch, gesture, search, voice and video. Applications themselves are likely to shift to more focused and simple apps that can be assembled into more complex solutions. These changes will drive the need for new user interface design skills.

Building application user interfaces that span a variety of device types, potentially from many vendors, requires an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device. Mobile consumer application platform tools and mobile enterprise platform tools are emerging to make it easier to develop in this cross-platform environment. HTML5 will also provide a long- term model to address some of the cross-platform issues. By 2015, mobile Web technologies will have advanced sufficiently, so that half the applications that would be written as native apps in 2011 will instead be delivered as Web apps.” One example I have already experienced is on the Mac. Mac OSX Lion which I installed last year has many of the same features as the iPhone. For example, I can see all my apps with the Launchpad on the Mac in the same way that I would see them on the iPhone. I can even flick through them with a swipe of a finger in the same way as on the phone.

“Contextual and Social User Experience. Context-aware computing uses information about an end-user or objects environment, activities, connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end-user or object.” Continues Gartner. “A contextually aware system anticipates the user’s needs and proactively serves up the most appropriate and customized content, product or service. Context can be used to link mobile, social, location, payment and commerce. It can help build skills in augmented reality, model-driven security and ensemble applications. Through 2013, context aware applications will appear in targeted areas such as location-based services, augmented reality on mobile devices, and mobile commerce.”

So you can see there is much in store for the future. Never a dull moment in the IT industry! Let’s look at more trends next week.

Until next time – and remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

Over the years, my simple project truths proved to be very popular. And because they all contain grains of truth, let me share with you more of them today.

“If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven’t understood the plan.”

“Feather and down are padding, changes and contingencies will be real events.”

“There are no good project managers – only lucky ones.”

“The more you plan the luckier you get.” – Isnt that true? Especially in light of the simple truth above?

“A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.”

“If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.”

“Overtime is a figment of the naïve project manager’s imagination.”

“Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance.”

“Metrics are learned men’s excuses.”

“For a project manager, overruns are as certain as death and taxes.”

“Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best efforts.”

“There is such a thing as an unrealistic timescale.”

“The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale.” – this is true for many projects, and IT projects are very prone to this as well, since estimating project effort is a very complex affair. In large business system installations, the scope of the project is not clear until the project is about 30% to 40% complete. It is seldom possible to predict the exact scope at the start of the project. Hence some companies (ours included) have resorted to giving project cost guarantees. These guarantees give the customer peace of mind that the project will not go over budget, but they come at a high price, since the risk of overruns is transferred to the implementing company.

“A two-year project will take three years; a three-year project will never finish.” – Haha, this one I like a lot as well. The reason here is that the customer (and sometimes the project team) looses interest in the project. It is therefore vital to break a long project down into many smaller ones so that successes are always around the corner.

“A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected – a well-planned project only twice as long as expected.” – very true – see my point above about the scope of the project – especially complex IT projects.

“Warning: dates in a calendar are closer than they appear to be.
A project gets a year late one day at a time.” …and it’s Christmas already again…

“If you’re 6 months late on a milestone due next week but really believe you can make it, you’re a project manager.”

“No project has ever finished on time, within budget, to requirements. Yours won’t be the first to.”

“Activity is not achievement.”

“Managing IT people is like herding cats.” Haha – especially programmers – they live in a world of their own. It’s hard to be brilliant ☺

“Good control reveals problems early – which only means you’ll have longer to worry about them.”

And my favourite of all times: “Fast – cheap – good – you can have only two of these for your project”

Well, I hope you have enjoyed these simple project truths. Apply them to your Christmas shopping or the preparation of Christmas dinner and you know what I mean.

Until next time then, have a good rest and a joyous festive season – and remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

Shopping online has become a very popular way of shopping. It is quick and usually less error prone than phone ordering or going to the store. It also saves you time. These are all great reasons I think you should shop online. You can find great deals online that you would normally would never find at a store.

But, the dark side of online shopping is the security of your information. Many people are victims of identity theft because they simply do not watch out for tell-tale signs of online trouble. As this blog is for those of you new computers, I wanted to go into what to look out for when shopping online.

Shop at reputable websites- This alone can prevent a lot of headache and mitigate online shopping risks. I hear a lot of times from friends and family “OH I found the amazing deal on xyz.com for that camera I have been looking for.” I reply “That’s great but who is or runs xyz.com?” This usually makes them think…. If you don’t know who this website is or no-one around you does, that would raise a red flag for me. Granted there are sites (like this one) that people create and they do have sponsors. I’m not talking about these. The websites you must watch out for are sites that have products way under the going price. These sites are there to entice you to enter your information.

They do not use secure communications- All purchase websites should encrypt your information. If they don’t then this is a tell-tale sign of dubious intentions. To check and see if you are on a secure site, you can simply look at the bottom of your web-browser or the address bar. There should be a lock icon indicating that it is secure. A lot of the newer browsers also present a security warning if you are transmitting data via unsecured channels. Now, keep in mind when I talk about secure, I’m talking when you go to pay for an item. The other pages of the website could be unsecured and that’s ok. As long as when you go to check out it is secure. Make sure the website address starts with “https”, not just “http”. You should also only trust websites that have a valid security certificate from Verisign or Thawte. Click on the Verisign or Thawte logo to view the certificate before you enter your credit card information.

Check the website spelling- A lot of scams are run now by misspelling a common website (example: ebay.com and ebayy.com). The fake site is made to look exactly like the legit site except where the purchase info goes to. So be on the lookout for mis-spelled websites.

Don’t fall for the email- SPAM or unsolicited email is one of the biggest security problems you can face. Unless you signed up for a specific stores email list or you know exactly who sent the email, you should delete the mail. Don’t open these emails. A lot of times the action of opening up the email can get your computer infected with virus or other harmful software.

Use your head to manage online shopping risks- The best advice I can give anyone is to use their brain. If you think the deal is too good to be true then most likely it is. If you buy something off a website like craigslist, use your brain and ensure you meet the person at a public place. If you are unsure, phone the seller and ask for a COD deal. Most courier companies offer COD deals – so all you risk is the courier costs.

All the best then for your holiday shopping – may you find what you are looking for – easily, quickly and conveniently! without the online shopping risks

Until next time then – remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

Project Risks

Handling of possible risks is relevant for the planning and the control of ERP risk. The responsibility of reducing risk may rest with the customer or with the consultant. Ideally this risk is shared between both parties.

Common risks include:

1. Too broad a definition of system. If the proposed system is not clearly defined, the customer may have expectations of the new system that cannot be met or were not to be included in the initial phase of the project.
2. Plan is not followed – If the project plan is not followed by one party, the other party will waste time.
3. Poor communication – Poor communication is one risk that can be addressed with good project management. Remember that many different persons are involved, with different skill levels and project roles, so its important that they understand each other, which can only be achieved by communication.
4. Loss of key competence – this is a risk typically involved in longer projects, where key staff on both the customers and system implementers side may leave, may be assigned to other projects or fall ill. Again, communication and documentation is so important to mitigate this risk.
5. Employees not motivated – is a risk common when a “top down” approach is used by management to get the project going, without buy-in from end users. We will explore this in more detail next week.
6. Unwillingness to take on responsibility – typically end users or project members may shy away from additional responsibilities such as finding needs, testing or training.
7. Too few resources – Resources to complete the project should be available as and when needed. Bottlenecks arise due to lack of funds or staff. Then the consultants are left to their own devices, and even with best intentions will get some of the customers needs wrong, wasting time and effort in the process. This may lead to unhappy customers. It is also important that the system provider has enough staff available to see the project through, and has more staff available on demand if needed. Beware therefore of buying software from a “one man show”, where support for the system rests with one individual.
8. Lacking support from management – if management does not support the project, it is bound to fail – its’ as simple as that! This is probably the one key issue regarding ERP risk
9. Unclear project organization – unorganized projects lead to communication gaps and lack of commitment to deliver on time.
10. Inflexible external suppliers – Remember that the system supplier has to rely on other suppliers as well. The fewer external suppliers necessary for a project, the better. Therefore it makes sense to choose a business management system that does not rely on specific hardware or third-party software.
11. Scope Creep – Customers may underestimate the scope of implementing an integrated business management system, especially, if the system is flexible and expandable and offers hundreds of new features. Excitement grows and more and more features are added to the project, bogging it down. Establish exactly what is included and what not. New features may be left for later phases of the project.

Next time

We have discussed some of the factors that may put any major IT project at risk. Some of the factors may be mitigated by managing the change in a proactive manner, which we will explore next week.

Until next week, and remember……keep it (A)FRESH!

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for over 5 years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 20 projects in this field. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

Bargain Hunting: Without going from store to store, which can take tons of time, you can look for the best price for what you are buying. You can also get up-to-the-minute discounts notifications, which makes it especially “bargainy.”

Time Saving: When you shop online, you don’t have to commit to a few hours, you can commit to ten minutes. This allows you to break-up the work into shorter, more manageable time chunks. Further, you won’t be wasting time traveling to the stores, looking for parking, walking around, yada yada. You’ll save hours of time by shopping online.

Avoiding the Crowds: I’m not a crowd person. And, the older I get, the lower my tolerance is for crowds. Shopping online allows you to avoid the mobs and the pushing and shoving that inevitably happens in retail stores.

Easy Parking: During this season, getting a parking spot at a mall or retail outlet can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Not only is it impossible, but it is time-consuming. Parking yourself at your computer takes two seconds!

Any Store in the World: Any retailer worth buying from is located on the internet. However, some malls don’t have the stores you may be looking for, forcing you to visit several places to get to all the stores you want.

Gift-Wrapping: Once you have bought your gifts, then comes wrapping. Some people hate wrapping (personally, I enjoy it, but that is the architect in me). Many online retailers will wrap your gifts for a small fee. So, for those of you who hate wrapping presents, you can eliminate this part of the gift-giving process.

Shipping: Just like the wrapping, you can have the online retailer ship to the location where the gift will be opened. If you are traveling a long distance to celebrate the holidays with loved ones (this is me), then having the gifts shipped is a much better option than having to lug them onto the plane.

Environmentally Friendly: Okay, if you are not a naturalist or someone who cares about the environment, then you can skip this one. But for those of you who do care, you will be saving paper (no paper receipts) and you will be reducing pollution (no gas emissions).

Smarter Shopping: Shopping online allows you to easily access and read customer reviews of products you are considering purchasing. This helps you make more informed decisions about gifting your loved ones.

Reduced Stress: And, when you have ALL of the benefits listed above, you will ultimately be able to reduce your stress levels! How much better does it get than that?

Now the above list is from America, and in South Africa we are not nearly as advanced. We did some research and found that only between 170 and 800 stores exist online in RSA, according to which research you believe. That’s not a lot compared to more developed markets. So we are working hard to increase this number for your convenience here at our new division www.icommerce-sa.co.za

All the best then for your holiday shopping – may you find what you are looking for – easily, quickly and conveniently!

Until next time then – remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

(9) Inadequate Training and Education
Another of the biggest causes of ERP implementation failure is inadequate education and training, which are almost always underestimated. ERP-related training is crucial as most employees must learn new software interfaces and business processes which affect the operation of the entire enterprise. The corporate culture is impacted by changes in the company’s business processes, and shortchanging this part of the ERP implementation leads to much pain and suffering downstream.

It is therefore extremely important to do user acceptance testing. Many factors influence user acceptance, but according to recent research, 2 factors stand out – 1. Data accuracy and 2. Ease of use. These sound obvious, but there are many more reasons, such as personal agendas, reluctance to change in general and suspicion of the motives of leadership. Data accuracy is obvious – if the data is not accurate – people will not trust the system and will stop using it. The same holds true for ease of use – if it is easier NOT to use the system then obviously the system will not be accepted. It is important to ensure that users find the new system easier to use than the old one –and at least initially they need to find it easy to learn.

(10) Poor Project Design and Management
A major mistake is to short-cut critical events in the project plan, such as time for documentation, redefining and integrating processes, or testing before “going live.”

Another common mistake is made when a company leaves out the self-examination of business processes and uses ERP to cover-up weaknesses. It is easier to buy software than to perform the more difficult task of identifying weaknesses and opportunities for improvement.

(11) Poor Communications
One of the causes of ERP implementation failure is poor project communications, beginning with a failure to announce the reason for the up and coming effort, and continuing to advise the organization of the progress and importance of the ERP implementation to the company. Poor communications prevent different parts of the organization from assessing how they will be impacted by changes in processes, policies, and procedures. Communications are a vital part of managing change in a corporate environment.

12) Ill-advised Cost Cutting
Another of the key causes of ERP implementation failure is ill-advised cost cutting. In an effort to avoid temporary conversion costs, some companies take a very risky route and go live at multi-plant sites simultaneously, subjecting all plants or some plants to a total shutdown should there be a false start-up. This is suicidal. Others attempt to unrealistically compress the schedule in order to save on expenses, only to eventually overrun both schedule and budget. We feel that ROI should take a “back seat” when upgrading an important part of a company’s infrastructure: the information system. Instead the implementation should be treated as an upgrade to the company infrastructure that is necessary to maintain or gain a strategic and competitive advantage.”

… and I can’t agree more with Ligus on that last point. This concludes our series of the 12 Cardinal sins of ERP implementation. Next week we are going to look at 10 top reasons to shop online this holiday season. As the year winds down we will focus more on the fun stuff!

Until next time then – remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

(4) Inadequate Resources
The third greatest reason for ERP implementation failures is inadequate resources. Many companies will attempt to “save dollars” by doing everything on an overtime basis, whether or not there are adequate skills within the company, extending individual work loads to 150%. This approach can be a “kiss of death” for the program. Time and time again we run across this mistake in ERP implementations. The financial and emotional drain of what seems sometimes to be perpetual extensions, reschedules and delays of implementations takes its toll. People burn out after having put in extensive hours over a long period of time.

(5) Resistance to Change/Lack of Buy-in
The lack of a change management approach as part of the program can prevent a program from succeeding. Resistance to change is quite often caused by (1) A failure to build a case for change, (2) Lack of involvement by those responsible for working with changed processes (3) Inadequate communication (4) Lack of visible top management support and commitment, and (5) Arrogance. A lack of buy-in often results from not getting end-users involved in the project from the very start, thereby negating their authorship and ownership of the new system and processes.

(6) Miscalculation of Time and Effort
Another cause of ERP implementation failure is the miscalculation of effort and time it will take to accomplish the project. Companies who treat an ERP selection, evaluation and implementation comparable to buying a washing machine are doomed to failure.

(7) Misfit of Application Software with Business Processes
One of the main causes of ERP implementation failure is the misfit of application software with the company business processes. This failure — to examine underlying business process flaws, and integrate the applications with the business processes, causes loss of productivity and time, and ultimate benefits.

(8) Unrealistic Expectation of Benefits and ROI
Another significant cause for ERP implementation failure is the unrealistic expectation of benefits and return on investment. Software providers are notorious for overstating the benefits in terms of ROI, when the total costs of the project have been understated. Often left out of the total costs are costs of planning, consulting fees, training, testing, data conversions, documentation, replacement staffing, and the learning curve performance drop. When this happens, a company doesn’t stand a chance of achieving the ROI it anticipated.

You will ask yourself – are all IT projects as complex as this? Definitely no! For example – we recently started a new division – www.icommerce-sa.co.za where we are a Magento Gold partner, helping corporations and small businesses setup their e-commerce strategy. We build online shopping sites that are fun and colourfull and that open up a new sales channel for our customers. It is not a rip and replace effort, and hence change and training are much less of an issue. So these are much easier projects to handle for any business. The problem with ERP is that it changes too much in the organisation and it expects so much of the organisation, such as the abliity to adapt and change to a new culture, the ability to see long term ROI projections and to stick to the vision especially when the going gets tough. So to be prepared – lets look at the last sins on the list next time!

Until next time then – remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).

But there are many more issues that lead to ERP Implementation failure. I found a very good white paper online, published originally by Richard G. Ligus of the Rockford Consulting Group, and since widely referenced online. Here is Richards take on the 12 Cardinal Sins of ERP Implementations:

“The Issues

The biggest single issue in ERP is the ERP implementation failure. It is mind-boggling to continually encounter companies who make major ERP gaffes in this day and age, especially since most of the trials and tribulations of MRPII implementation were suffered and learned from in the early 1980′s with alpha, beta and gamma releases.

So what constitutes failure? Several things come to mind:

(1) Not making the promised return on investment,
(2) Inordinately extending the implementation schedule and start-up date,
(3) Running over budget by unconscionable variances,
(4) Grinding the organization to a crawl pace, or the severest of all consequences,
(5) Stopping production and/or not delivering orders to your customers.

Industry statistics show that >60% of ERP implementation starts historically fail. Does this mean that you are doomed from the start? Of course not, if you learn from the mistakes of others. So the pertinent question is what are the main causes of ERP failure and what can be done to prevent this from happening to you?

The 12 Cardinal Sins of ERP Implementation

There are twelve major reasons for why companies get bogged down or fail in implementing ERP.

(1) Lack of Top Management Commitment
The propensity of top management to delegate the oversight of an ERP implementation to lower management levels often results in (1) being “out of touch” with critical events, or (2) the lack of understanding of the size, scope, and technical aspects of the project, and subsequently, the lack of proper commitment of time and resources required for a successful implementation. The result is a failure waiting to happen.

(2) Inadequate Requirements Definition
Surveys have shown that inadequate definition of functional requirements accounts for nearly 60% of ERP implementation failures. This is simply a matter of not comprehensively and systematically developing a quality set of functional requirements definitions. This leads to the second greatest cause of ERP implementation failures: poor package selection.

(3) Poor ERP Package Selection
Poor package selection occurs when a company has inadequately developed functional requirements definitions. It also occurs when staff members assigned to ERP projects do not take the time to run the screens of the new system, as they would during their daily work tasks, to find out if the software package features are adequate for their needs.

Another reason we have found is executives, familiar with an ERP system from a last job they held, implement the same system in their new company without defining functional requirements. We have also encountered companies who made major gaffes by selecting a package at the top levels of a company without intimately knowing its characteristics. What often results from this is the ERP package doesn’t fit the organizational needs, or that the package selected takes longer to process daily work tasks.

We have also seen executives select a distribution package for a manufacturing environment, or a manufacturing package for a distribution environment, for obscure reason, such as liking one salesman over another.

Let’s look at more reasons for ERP Implementation failure next time then – remember – Keep it (A)fresh

About the writer: Immo Böhm

Immo Böhm is the founder and managing director of Afresh Consult. He has been involved with business management systems for many years. He is an experienced implementation and process design consultant and has done in excess of 70 projects in this regard. Immo has a B.Sc degree, a diploma in IT and a MBA (UK).