REPORT
The 2025 Top 10 ERP Systems Report
Our experts have highlighted ten vendors that can help your organization make data-driven decisions.
Learn more
Starting Up and Stepping Out: ERP Software and the Little Guy
You just developed the greatest thing since sliced bread! Customers are beating down the door, and everything looks rosy! But along the way, you somehow forgot that all that order taking, manufacturing, shipping and receiving, financial transactions and reporting...Lord Knows I Can’t Change: What’s Your Organizational Change Management Plan?
Lynyrd Skynyrd once said that free birds can’t change. Most companies employ people that have worked for some time to learn the organization’s culture, business processes, and way of doing things. Hopefully you have talented and capable people ensuring...SAP Implementation Gone Bad: Learning From the Mistakes of Others
Tier I ERP systems are generally more robust, complex, and as a result, more difficult to implement than Tier II counterparts. SAP implementations, in particular, get a bad rap because of the large, high-visibility companies that have tried and failed to implement...Five Benefits of Six Sigma During an ERP Implementation
Six sigma initiatives and ERP systems have both been around for a long time. Companies like Motorola and GE made six sigma part of the business mainstream in the ’80s, while Baan made ERP software equally important at the corporate level in the ’90s. A lot...Five Mistakes That Will Make Your ERP Implementation Feel Like a Bad Horror Movie
I’m a big fan of horror movies, and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It’s the time of year where many of us (or our kids) dress up like scary characters and watch scary movies. As much as I love Halloween, slasher movies, and a good scary mask in...ERP Boot Camp: Arm Yourself, Prepare for Battle, and Make Your ERP Implementation Project Successful
Embarking on an ERP implementation can feel like going to battle: the process can be grueling and time consuming, money and jobs are at stake, and the odds are stacked against you. In months past I’ve blogged a lot about ERP failures and we have heard a great...The Great Mystery of the ERP 10-Year Itch: Why Businesses Can’t Seem to Stick with Their ERP Software for More Than 10 Years
When CIOs and CFOs invest in their new ERP software, they expect a long and happy relationship with the new software. Like most capital investments, they typically expect the investment to last ten or more years. Ten years is a good deal of time and generally long...When are ERP Best Practices and Industry Pre-Configurations Good For Your Business?
One of the key reasons that companies implement ERP systems is to incorporate best practices into their business operations. Pre-configured ERP systems for a specific industry can bring embedded business processes, functionality, and configuration to the table. After...Key Reasons Why Only 23% of ERP Implementations Go As Expected
In a recent poll, we asked participants to gauge how their most recent ERP implementation went. Perhaps not surprisingly, only 23% said that it went as expected, with another 12% saying that it went better than expected. On the other hand, 42% said their deployments...SaaS, On Premise, Cloud, Best of Breed: Making Sense of All the ERP System Options
One of the first steps in an effective ERP selection process is to determine the type of enterprise system you’re looking for. There are lots of buzzwords out there – Tier I, Tier II, SaaS, the cloud, best of breed, and various others. What does this all...What are the Goals of Manufacturing Software Initiatives?
A few weeks ago, one of our blogs focused on the pros and cons for companies choosing to leverage best practices and pre-configured manufacturing software systems. As we pointed out, while a useful starting point, best practices are not always relevant and cannot...Does it Feel Like Eenie Meenie Minie Mo When Choosing Between Traditional, Hosted, and SaaS ERP Software Packages?
Recent technological innovations have given companies in search of ERP software more deployment options than ever before. In addition to traditional on-premise ERP systems, there are now a number of strong ERP solutions available in the form of hosted or SaaS...Like Football, An ERP Implementation is A Game of Inches, But Where Is The Goal Line?
I’m a huge fan of professional football (American football, that is). Perhaps the thing that fascinates me most about the sport is how much each play matters, and how within each play, every little thing matters. If an offensive lineman protecting the...Why SaaS and Cloud Enterprise Applications Are Ensuring a Bright Future For Big ERP Systems
The general consensus in today’s enterprise software space is that Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing are the waves of the future. Industry analysts and vendor sales reps are proclaiming that SaaS ERP systems are cheaper, faster, and easier, while...Will the US Government’s Proposed R&D Tax Credit Increase Likelihood of More ERP Investments?
Earlier this month, the US government proposed a tax credit that would allow companies to fully depreciate their investments in new equipment and other capital expenditures through the end of 2011. Instead of depreciating investments in these assets over an extended...ERP Systems Provide a Platform for Business Excellence
An ERP system (or enterprise resource planning) is a platform for gaining and sustaining business excellence. Excellence in business is more important than ever in a global economy where international competition is intensifying and holding on to a competitive...How Alliances, Referrals, and Kickbacks Undermine ERP Initiatives
ZDNet recently posted an article about the perils of an ERP industry in which most of the major players are somehow aligned with ERP vendors. Panorama’s business model is based on independence from software vendors, which we have discussed in this blog on a...Where’s my Advil, I Have an ERP Headache!
Grab the Advil! I have a headache. A really big, oversized ERP headache. The Swinging Door of ERP Consultants As a former implementation lead on the client side, I can attest that the practice of replacing consultants at every stage of an ERP implementation was...Five Things to Remember in Your ERP Implementation Plan
If I listen to the hype from some ERP vendors, ERP implementations are a cakewalk. According to these sales messages, pre-configured industry solutions, data conversion tools, and generic training materials allow a company to have their ERP software up and running in...
