1. When an ERP implementation fails, who is to blame?

Is it the software manufacturer, the

client firm, or the implementation strategy? 

Required Research this issue and write a brief paper outlining the key issues.  

The biggest barriers for project failure are usually lack of resources and expertise. Lack of sponsorship
and commitment. Like all organisation wide projects ERP implementation without 100% C level
commitment is doomed to fail. Bad change management and lack of it does not give any urgency for
change. Finally it's poorly analysed requirements and use case definitions resulting in the wrong product
being selected and or the “wrong project” being delivered.

Open and honest communication through out the project is absolutely paramount. While WebEx
meetings are great to sort out small issues along the way, they simply cannot have the same discussion
and communication authenticity of being on-site. It's important to see the implementation team, deal
directly with operations, find who is going to be resistant to change, manage the internal politics and so
much more that makes a project problematic.

It's critical to meet the implementation team face to face, and to deal directly with operations people
and project sponsors as this dialogue will help to identify those who may be resistant to change and
manage the internal politics and all the other aspects which may make a project problematic, or derail it
entirely.

Cutting back on travel expenses may seem to be a smart way to save on total project cost, but this really
could prove to be a false economy which, can and often does, send the project off track or spiralling into
failure. As a minimum discovery / planning sessions MUST take place on site

These failings will, without doubt, result in a nightmare project journey which will cost the business
dearly both in term of the actual monetary costs, wasting of time and resources across the business.

The biggest legacy of an unsuccessful project is the failure will be ingrained within the organisation’s
psyche resulting in an unwillingness to embark on any future required change projects due to a feeling
of “we tried this, but it didn’t work”.

ERP CONSULTANTS

Do an internet search of complaints about ERP consultants. Write a report about most common
complaints and cite examples.

2. When we pick a consultant, we’ve already picked our product.

 We call an enterprise class-consulting firm (one that works with all the Tier 1 products such as
NetSuite ERP, Scoro, SYSPRO, etc.). We fully expect this organization to come out and evaluate our
needs and recommend the product that best meets our needs. With our permission, the consulting
company sends out a team of consultants to the rescue. Here’s the kicker which they may send out the
NetSuite ERP consulting team, the Scoro consulting team or the SYSPRO consulting team. It depends
largely on the industry we are in and on the availability of the various consultants within the
organization. Based on the feedback that they have been privy to, it appears that ten times out of ten,
the consultants will recommend the product that they consult on. For example, the NetSuite ERP will
always recommend NetSuite ERP, the Scoro consultants from the same consulting firm will always
recommend Scoro, and the SYSPRO consultants from the same consulting firm will always recommend
an SYSPRO solution.

To make matters worse, the consultants will not recommend the product right away, they will
first undergo a 6 month to 18-month evaluation of our needs in which they assemble committees, ask
questions, and document various processes, etc. while charging us at a billing rate of approximately
RM95 per hour. The recommendation that we receive is not delivered to us until RM50,000 to
RM100,000 in fees have been churned in WIP. And then they recommend the same solution that
everybody knew.

As an example, one of the instructors related this particular information in a course and the CFO
of a Faiza Sdn Bhd company stood up and confirmed this action with her own rendition as follows: “We
currently use SYSPRO and we wanted to purchase the SYSPRO Project Costing Module and we just
wanted to see it in action before we made the final decision”. Faiza called a top consulting firm and they
have taken the last 18 months and charged us RM100,000 so far, and we still have not seen the first
feature of the SYSPRO Project Costing module. So far they established enormous committees of up to
150 people with lots of their folks on those committees.

What we have just described is exactly what has happened to some company. “Obviously this
CFO was rather furious with this revelation. She seemed to be mostly upset that she let it go as far as it
had.

RESOURCES:

https://www.acumatica.com/blog/what-is-the-erp-implementation-process/