Re: ERPs a waste of space?

Sounds like you're trying to compare apples and oranges. A plug and play personal computer is a lot different than an enterprise information system that services the needs of thousands of employees and even more customers. An ERP system is dramatically more complex and its impact more far reaching than any individual personal computer. If you want to talk about monopolies, what operating system are all of those personal computers running???

Martyn Richard Jones wrote:

> Hello,
>
> The nights are longer in Spain right now and it seemed like an ideal
> moment to ponder a couple of issues related to the vagaries of
> technologies, business and commercial astuteness. I am currently
> putting together a white paper on ERPs, Knowledge Management and
> Information Management and need as much varied input as possible (the
> paper will be published – free of charge - on our new web site
> http://www.iniciativas.com towards the end of February 2000).
>
> Lets start with a question: How does the imposition of an external
> mode of work affect our ability to be creative and decisive with
> information and to be more innovative and productive through the
> management(communicating, reviewing, sharing) of information and
> knowledge?Imagine that the external mode of work comes as a need to
> conform to the nuances of a software package, rather than vice versa.
>
> Given that Microsoft has been hauled through the courts for alleged
> restrictive and monopolistic practices does it not beg the question:
> and who next will be next? Better still, “and who should really have
> been in the dock rather than MS?”
>
> From my experience of implementations and use of ERPs (Enterprise
> Resource Planner) I can say that when business have to, or desire to
> go the ERP route, they are somewhat more tied - should that be
> "hooked" - into a solution than with virtually any other information
> technology based "solution".
>
> I am particularly concerned about the potential impact of rampant
> application and business process conformance on the areas of
> Information and Knowledge Management. It is curious to note that
> Business IT alignment means that IT aligns with the business so long
> as the business processes can align with the application. It seems as
> if some segments of the IT industry are actually suggesting that
> business IT should continue to focus more on the technology (software)
> than the business needs. Common sense tells us that this is wrong and
> that business IT should be focusing on what the business wants and not
> on specific software solutions. But it will take a brave consultant to
> tell an Information Systems management team that they have actually
> chosen an inadequate ERP, with suspect underlying analytical models
> and erroneous process models, at enormous purchase costs,
> environmental impact costs and cost of ownership that they made the
> wrong choice. A wrong choice that was emphasized by what Dr. Reilly
> Atkinson described to me as “putting all of their startegical and
> tactical eggs in someone else’s basket”.
>
> The other aspect of ERP lies in the climate of mediocrity and
> battle-weariness that it creates and reinforces. Where you have
> technicians, knowledge workers, managers and executives spending on
> their time and efforts in getting an ERP to function, and have no time
> left to address the real underlying business problems. But again, and
> has been mentioned to me on a number of occasions, an ERP system is
> easier to manage than a real business and it’s much easier to set up a
> nice bureaucratic chain of management command and control. This is
> needed to ensure that the cost of failure can be manipulated and at
> worst apportioned to external consultants. Who will have been paid
> handsomely to take the fall.
>
> Choosing diverse plug and play applications for a MS Windows / NT
> environment is a question of preference, and one can easily switch
> from one type of office solution to another without too much bother -
> apart from issues with blue screen and the like.
>
> The problem with many ERPs (the ones that I know) is that you cannot
> mix and match. It's not just a question of slight variations between
> one offering and another but rather one of almost complete and utter
> incompatibility. There is no backward compatability with ERPs as there
> is with most any Microsoft product, so when you’re tied in to an ERP
> you are really hooked in long term.
>
> When integration implies a massive effort even bigger than an ERP
> implementation then the thought ofconstructing a desired system gets
> thrown on the burner together with the needs of business
>
> On the other hand one has to applaud the likes of Oracle for not
> insisting on force feeding their version of Information Management
> reality down the necks of corporate business - unfortunately this
> cannot be said for any of the other ERPs I know.
>
> If the only companies that went for an ERP solution were the ones that
> had no alternative option then there wouldn’t be a problem right? But
> what is the sense in business paying vast amounts of throw away cash
> on creating a level playing field? As Mr. Denham Gray recently pointed
> out to me “most companies bought ERP to enhance their competitiveness,
> most find the level playing field now offers no advantages.”
>
> So, last year Microsoft and this year ERP Corp? What of the highly
> damaging and negative impact of the pervasive use of rigid
> applications on the agility, flexibility and responsiveness of
> corporate business with particular regard to contemporary views on KM
> (Knowledge Sharing, Communities of Practice etc.) and IM (OLAP, Data
> Warehousing, Business Intelligence etc,)?What of the vapid claims of
> some ERP vendors that their products actually include Data Warehousing
> and Knowledge Management enabling technology, when at best it could be
> described as a mix of pretty standard and suspect“data analytics”.
>
> When a company has committed to an ERP and then sees the wolf at the
> door it’s only collective thought is in how and when to put the baby
> to bed as fast as possible (if at all), when this mindset sets in
> trying to get rid of it is about as easy as throwing out the ERP. It’s
> a big issue. Companies significantly reduce their future options and
> their agility, apart from software and other technological choices,
> “there is a contagious mindset, a battle wariness, a set of invisible
> blinkers and a reluctance to disturb the status quo that sets in.”
> Riding an ERP is like riding a trend or a maverick horse, better to
> ride it in the direction it’s already going or not at all.
>
> Regards and best wishes for the holiday season,
>
> Martyn R Jones
>
> Director, Iniciativa

Received on Tue Jan 11 2000 - 12:45:18 CST