It’s the Final Countdown: Navigating the ERP Software Sales Process
By Sam Graham Here’s a hypothetical scenario. Your company has decided to implement a new ERP system, or perhaps even to target a digital transformation. You have formed a project team, which has clarified and documented requirements and has taken them to market via an ERP RFP (Request for Proposal). The ERP software short-list Having […]
ERP Request for Proposal (RFP): What Do You Want Your New Software to Achieve?
By Sam Graham Perhaps more frequently known as a Request for Proposal (RFP), an Invitation to Tender (ITT) or a Statement of User Requirements (SOUR), a written statement of what a new system is required to deliver is essential to achievement of a successful project but is one of the hardest things to do. The […]
The Importance of ERP Go-Live System Testing
By Sam Graham A standard piece of advice when implementing an ERP system is that it should never go live without exhaustive and comprehensive testing. Even small companies implementing Tier 3 systems, are urged to carry out ‘Conference room pilots’ to ensure that there are no nasty surprises come the big day. But the latest […]
The Project Sponsor’s Role on Digital Transformation Initiatives
By Sam Graham Several recent high-profile ERP failures have suggested that they were projects out of control, and that causes many people to query what the client’s senior management team was doing. ERP failure can largely be mitigated by clearly defining the project sponsor’s role on digital transformation initiatives. All textbooks recommend having a project […]
ERP Implementation – Big Bang or Phased?
By Sam Graham If anything positive can be taken from recent ERP disasters (Lidl, National Grid, Waste Management, etc), it is that these failures happened before those systems went live. Compare that with, for example, the Hershey debacle (now frequently used as a case study in how not to implement ERP). It would appear that […]
How to Avoid ERP Failure
By Sam Graham Benjamin Franklin once said that in this world only two things are certain; death and taxes. Were he alive today, he would probably have added a third: continuing analysis of ERP project failure. We had hardly moved on from the Anchorage disaster before we read about the National Grid SAP failure, and […]
Have You Done Your Homework to Prepare for Your Digital Transformation?
By Stuart Robb, Maddison Ward Limited Shall I tell you a secret? A big digital transformation trade secret… Whilst all the consultancy firms will bombard you with their papers on the top 6, the top 10, the top 15, and the top 61 reasons why ERP programs fail, the truth is that there is only […]