Oh the Toil
December 9th, 2004 by Adam Cuothe
Barry Wilderman at Meta recently:
There is dynamic tension between an organization’s ERP backbone and best-in-class applications in the overall portfolio. Organizations should evaluate (at least once a year) whether to replace best-in-class applications with similar ERP modules (or, more rarely, the converse).
Sounds good. I get a little stuck with some parts of the article though (no, not the “return on intelligence”). Barry asks us to follow the “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” cliche. Then continues to offer a series of good advice type questions to reflect on. No, to busy oneself with. Namely, survey the user base, collect all kinds of information about what the application is doing for each of its users, figure out future requirements. Ok, but do all of this once a year? That could mean a lot of work. And this is all to begin figuring out if it will be a good idea to move from one’s best-in-class system to something the ERP vendor might be doing a better job of lately.
It sounds like it can make sense to be aware and do these types of reviews. It makes me wonder though, with all the work involved if there might be a better way to go about it. Once a year comes around pretty fast.
How can a company capture their requirements, research, user information one year, tie it their system’s functionality, and easily get an up-to-date comparison review the next? Not only does one have to track one’s own company information, but also all of the applicable vendor information in the market.
Really–I just hate the expression “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
August 9th, 2005 at 09:40
Capturing user requirements/etc annually sounds like a lot of work. Maybe the solution is to collect user requirements and feedback in real-time, through the year. If your ERP applications are properly factored and dynamic, data collection can be a continuous, optimizing process.
Mike Peteg
August 9th, 2005 at 09:41
Mike, that sounds like a good way of approaching the problem but how do you assess the meaning of the data? BI applications will be useful toward certain situations, what is on the market though that can keep an ongoing and real time assessment of a company’s ERP usage? Suppose you implement something to do this, you’ve still got to tie all of that data into a constantly updating information system modeled on what all the vendors can do for you. Perhaps this is a good opportunity for some bright analyst firm.