Maximizing Return on Investment Using ERP Applications

INTRODUCTION

We are deluged with euphoric articles about every new business application and how it can be deployed and can make great contributions to a business. Leaders, however, continue to struggle to adopt approaches that produce tangible, measurable, and reliable Return on Investment. The most pervasive of these applications are broadly known as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications.

It is also a commonly held belief that this failure to produce results is simply a failure of leadership, when often failures are the product of a more widely spread lack of process understanding within the executive team. How many times have you heard the explanation for resistance to changes being implemented as “having to do it the XYZ (SAP, Oracle, or other) way?” when it is actually the result of a logical business process that prevents some designs. It is also frequently the lack of understanding of the work required to integrate new business processes into existing cultural and political environments where failures appear and, if not effectively addressed, become reality.