Far from making businesses more efficient, enterprise resource planning projects are often costly, inappropriate and oversold according to a report entitled The Cost of Complexity by Banner Research, commissioned by US enterprise application integration company, Constellar Corp.
The survey argues that ERP implementations are not meeting customers’ expectations in terms of deadlines, functionality and cost. Out of 100 respondents to the survey, of which only 56 had ERP systems already installed, 23% said that the project was late, 27% that it did not give anticipated business benefits and 16% that the ERP went over budget.
Clearly the complexities of application integration do not seem to be fully appreciated by the user companies or their system integrators/consultants, the report concludes. Tony Kelly, Cap Gemini’s UK head of ERP, speaking at a seminar on e-commerce in London earlier this month, said that between half and three quarters of all ERP implementations were poorly implemented, thereby undercutting any potential benefits.
