SAP Implementation is an Investment NOT an Event

By |July 12th, 2010|

A while back, I talked to a pair of executives who were trying to determine whether or not their SAP implementation cost was higher or lower than their competitors. They wanted benchmarks or some other way to know if they were in line with the marketplace. The CFO was worried that they might have paid way too much for their SAP implementation. After talking for a few minutes, they realized that they were looking at the question the wrong way. While they were asking about how their expenditure c [...]

SAP Implementation Partner or Company Selection Criteria

By |June 5th, 2010|

Project success depends on an implementation partner's ability to ensure business transformation occurs. Can the SAP implementation partner or company deliver business process engineering together WITH the new system? Or, as with so many of them, do they just install systems and call that an implementation? Lately, I have been focused on developing a solid and repeatable ERP software and vendor selection process. While reviewing the academic literature and reflecting on my time working with SAP [...]

Designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior

By |March 11th, 2010|

 Great companies are almost always run by great management teams. And great management teams know that the only way to improve a process is to start by measuring it. Good metrics should also be actionable and drive successful behavior. In this post, I reveal how to figure out which metrics matter the most, and how to design them in such a way as to drive behavior that will lead to the results that you want. This post is applicable to any kind of business. In a follow-up post, I will use th [...]

Future Technology Landscape Alignment for the CIO, IT Director, or Key IT Decision Maker

By |March 2nd, 2010|

This article is the last of a four-part series, which covered the entire breadth of the business to technology landscape of the future: IT organizational alignment, business alignment, and future technology alignment for success in tomorrow's marketplace. This final post takes a look at the emerging technology landscape and what the future holds. What Does the Future Technology to Business Alignment Hold - Future ERP, SAP, and IT Value A number of changes on the horizon will produce a number of [...]

Where SAP Is Missing a Key Business and Market Opportunity for Leadership

By |February 10th, 2010|

In reading through a post on the CIO Magazine blogs (“ERP Costs: 3 Signs Companies Are Wasting Less Money” [FN1]) on Panorama’s comparison of Saas with traditional ERP, Saas is not all it is cracked up to be. SAP has failed to capitalize on the genuine shortcomings of Saas ERP compared to on-premise ERP solutions such as SAP. Saas ERP is implemented over 35% more quickly (11.6 mo v. 18.4), but costs only 10% less to implement (6.2 v. 6.9 ann. rev). Even though CEOs may be slightly more satisfie [...]

Business and IT Alignment – Integrating Technology and IT Spend with Business

By |February 5th, 2010|

Aligning technology to business requirements is based on a few underlying assumptions that are often lacking from SAP projects. Those assumptions are 1) the business actually knows what their requirements are, 2) the project scope includes those requirements, 3) the right management and internal employees are committed and engaged, and 4) the system integrator you select has consultants with the required experience. Often, I see businesses fail to look beyond operational excellence areas of the [...]