Read Shai Agassi's post - Does ERP Matter?
When they ask a question of this nature e.g. ‘Does ERP Matter?’. [or Does IT Matter? for that matter]. Are they really doubting the role of ERP/IT infrastructure and thinking as if ‘ERP may not Matter'? [ And SAP/Oracle were running the biggest scam for all these years ;-) ]
I think it just indicates a thought towards, 'Is ERP a differentiator'? Or is it something that can be taken for-granted like the Earth and then differentiations will be coming through the ‘Satellite’ packages built on the ERP infrastructure but not exactly a part of it. In effect, the ERP infrastructure will provide a backend for innovation but the result of the innovation may seem to be a complete entity in itself.
However, as per the analogy, in most of the cases, it will still need the integration [attraction] of the Earth [ ERP ] to keep these ‘satellites of innovation’ moving.
UPDATED:
See Shai's response post :'What is ERP?'.
There is no doubt that ERP, which was a key differentiator for companies 10 years ago has become more context for some of the companies today, and for those who had bad implementations, even worse a costly commoditized set of processes (and if they picked a non-SAP product, a costly legacy set of processes).
Posts
The Major ERP Vendors have failed to meet the aspirations of Small and Medium Industries vis a vis cost, performance, flxibility and ease of use. Over and above high costs, SMEs are forced to acquire large servers, highly qualified technical personnel, pay user based fees and recurring license costs etc.
ReplyDeleteThe core intent of SME of optimizing cost is lost the moment they are fooled into going for a oversized, underutilized, misfit ERP.
Only Open Source ERPs like SYS-APPS (www.excltechnologies.com)
which are focused to the requirements of SMEs, can serve them effectively and help them realize their goal of improved efficiency with lower input costs.