If your company is capable of running an ERP system, it is capable of managing a project to buy and implement one. How can we make such a brash assertion, when (1) so many ERP projects fail and (2) so much arcane expertise is involved in ERP implementation?
A considerable amount of sheer knowledge is required to bring home a successful ERP acquisition and implementation. A significant portion of this is technical and ERP system-specific and can only come from outside product experts. By virtue of their special expertise, these experts are assured a place in every ERP implementation. But the inescapable fact that we must hire implementation experts often blinds us to another fact that is every bit as important to the implementation’s overall success. This is the fact that an even greater portion of the knowledge required – well over three quarters of it and probably much more than that – can only come from within the user company itself. The future users of the system are the only people in the world who can know what implementation success even means in terms of the concrete reality of their business lives.
Outsiders come to the party understanding some of the concrete realities of other companies they’ve encountered, some (but certainly not all) of which may correspond closely to the day to day reality of their new client. The rest of what they believe about their new client’s business may be fairly labeled abstractions – that is, statements about business life that ring true enough in themselves, but which omit the concrete details that make their new client different from every other company these experts have ever met. Implementers should never be asked to make assumptions and guesses based on their abstract knowledge of business and their concrete knowledge of how other companies work. They should be supplied with the detailed business facts they need before they even begin their work. These facts can only come from the company that hires them.
