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    « The Classroom and the Community | Main | A Picture in Search of a Post »
    Friday
    Apr172009

    ERP and the Ford Taurus

    Ah, 1997.

    Elton John's Candle in the Wind was on the charts, you saw Titanic two or three times,  and one of America's top selling cars was the Ford Taurus.  Maybe you bought one, or more likely had one as a rental car. I swear I drove a Ford Taurus something like 72 weeks in a row when I was still in ERP consulting. 

     Stylin' in the Taurus

    She's a beauty, no?

    You know what else you might have purchased in 1997? 

    Your ERP system. The same one that still runs your HR, Payroll, Accounting and Distribution processes.  In 1997, about $14B was spent by organizations on ERP.  By now you would have had to go through two or likely even three significant upgrades, each one getting progressively more complex, costly, and time consuming.  But underneath it all, the chances are the 'core' of the system is still largely the same as the 1997 model.  The data model you are using today, is probably largely unchanged from the original version of the system you implemented in 1997.

    What about your business? How many things have changed since 1997?  Would you still make the same ERP purchase decision today that you did in 1997, when chances are you were in a panic over Y2K and you were pretty sure your Cobol mainframe system was going to spontaneously combust?

    Is it really time for your organization to begin to let go of the loyalty to a system you bought over a decade ago? 

    Many organizations still feel the need to only look to their ERP solution and try to add-on Talent Management functionality, or the ATS module rather than do a comprehensive assessment of the market, the business issues, and make an informed decision about the right technology solution for the business. 

    You eventually sold (or junked) that '97 Taurus, didn't you?

    NOTE : I ran this post, more or less on my old Wordpress blog, but after an interesting Twitter chat with Byron Abramowitz and Michael Krupa about ERP, upgrades, and creaky data models, I decided to run it today.  Also, it was WAY easier than writing a whole new post.

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