ERP Implementation in 10 Easy Steps

[Former Member]

1.Ask the board of directors for an arbitrary but large sum of money. (Suggestion: $300 million.)

2.Give half the money to consultants. Ask them to select an appropriate ERP package for your company. Consultants will audit your business processes for six months and then select SAP, which they happen to resell.

3.Form cross-functional implementation teams. Hold meetings.

4.Re-engineer all your business processes to match the software’s model.

5.Give the other half of the money to consultants.

6.Install the software.

7.Train end users repeatedly.

8.Cross your fingers.

9.Turn on the software.

10.If you’re still in business, immediately return to Step 1 because it’s time for an upgrade.

[dhorions]

Boy am I glad I just started being a consultant

[Former Member]

You have to admire SAP's salespeople, anyone who can genuinely convince several businesses of point 4 gets a lot of credit, when it should really read

4) Re-engineer your business processes to match those of the last company that paid for its development

[Former Member]

Now, now MH, you're exaggerating slightly.

Don't give all of the second half ($150+ million) to the "low-risk/high-margin" folks.

Save a reasonable amount for the techies that are going to have to write the one-time and continuing interfaces from legacy - say. maybe $50K.

And also save another maybe $50K for all the customization the carefully trained end-users are going to scream for once they realize that the thing is actualy live ...

Anyway, glad to see someone else is willing to try and liven things up around here ...

Best regards

dkj

[stephenjohannes]

MH,

I think there we some steps missing about spending two years documenting the new business processes without looking at the new software you purchased. Also missing was spending time to make the new ERP system look like the old legacy system.

Otherwise, this was pretty dead on example of the "early R/3" implementation projects.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

> I think there we some steps missing about spending

> two years documenting the new business processes

> without looking at the new software you purchased.

Hey, if SAP ran in powerpoint every implementation would be perfect.

> Also missing was spending time to make the new ERP

> system look like the old legacy system.

Look like the old system? Look, feel and behave more like.

>Otherwise, this was pretty dead on example of the "early R/3" implementation

> projects.

What's your definition of early? This July?

[stephenjohannes]

> Hey, if SAP ran in powerpoint every implementation

> would be perfect.

I think this is a planned feature for Netweaver 8.0

> > Also missing was spending time to make the new ERP

> > system look like the old legacy system.

Depends on how much money you want to spend. 50 million to make the system look like the old system, 100 million if you want to behave the like the old system, and 200 million if you want the system to actually work.

> What's your definition of early? This July?

Any project that was done before ASAP methodology was released. An "early project" would have been any implementation that would have taken less than 2 years to complete.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

> Also missing was spending time to make the new ERP

> system look like the old legacy system.

>Look like the old system? Look, feel and behave more like.

On one of my current project, we even have to reproduce the bugs of the legacy sytem. The client systems are disturbed by the correct answers from SAP R/3....

Silly, is'nt it !