ABSTRACT
One of the toughest questions facing any company considering an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is managing expectation of software modifications vs. business process reengineering. An excellent way for an ERP system implementation to fail is to expect the software to be drastically changed to reflect the current business processes. Similarly, using wholesale business process changes to match a poorly fitting software can be a fatal mistake. Doing a thorough system selection to ensure the very best possible software fit could save the company millions of dollars of implementation cost. The best advice to a company that expects the new ERP system to look exactly like its old business system is to stop, save its money, and stay with the old system. Think about it: add the cost to purchase the new system plus the cost of modifying it to the cost and frustration of attempting to implement this mess. Then consider that in the end the system will look just like what was there before; the balance sheet will have a big chunk taken out of its asset side as the project consumes cash. Why bother? It is essential during the selection phase that the key business processes for your company are reflected in the system selected. This selection process is described in Chapter 13.
