Of course, 21st century ERP is cloud friendly and cloud native, and is also “hype friendly” with claims of AI, ML, IOT, VR, AR et al.

As fundamental as they are, 75% of ERP implementations and transformations fail to stay on schedule or within budget, and two-thirds have a negative return on investment. To live up to technology’s promise for the modern enterprise, ERP must become easier to deploy with faster time to value.

It’s easy to blame the technology in play, when it doesn’t live up to the potential we envisioned. But there are other issues at stake:

• Misaligned incentives. All of the stakeholders and participants may not share the same goals.
• Poor project management. Most organizations lack experience in managing complex business/technology projects with many moving parts.
• Lack of business-IT integration. Multiple lines of business must buy into the outcomes of the new process and technology, engage in the change management process, and agree on workflows, definitions, compliance, validation — and more.
• Missing the focus on business value. Detailed activities and tasks can drive transformation, rather than customer value, process integration and bottom-line impact.
• Inappropriate methodology. There is a balance needed between structure and agility, specification and iterative refinement. But a clearly understood process is key.

Have a read of our article of the week as it delves into how to ensure ERP keeps up with our agility and productivity needs of the future. You can find it here