Dumb question: what is SAP

[Fishface]

That's complete and utter tripe I'm afraid.

Having worked extensively with (not for) IFS and to a lesser extent SAP and Lawsons their staff are far from just being IT people. In fact apart from the obvious coders and tech support their staffs are business experts with real world experience in their industries who work with the client to analyse and optimise the requirements, processes and application, the actual IT technical work is about 30% of the projects.
A vanilla Supply Chain module for example will have been constructed around what are regarded as best in class business processes, the modules are then intended to be configured to suit the clients specific business needs. If the client chucks out the carefully designed ERP model in favour of retaining old inefficient or just plain broken processes (I've seen all 3) then the ERP can be bespoked to fit, but the end result is inevitably a failure to realise the long term cost savings which could be achieved and were the justification for the whole project in the first place.

IT solutions should be an instrument to drive Business improvements otherwise there's no point installing them.

this is exactly what I'm talking about - full of cliches.

I'm not talking about broken process or inefficiencies - I'm talking about differences in region/markets/channels and more importantly change and the ability to deal with that.

Giant ERP's are a blunt instruments and don't work very well across diverse market regions such as SE Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America.

>>but the end result is inevitably a failure to realise the long term cost savings

revenue recognised every quarter - is that long term?

[NotAllThere]

...
Giant ERP's are a blunt instruments and don't work very well across diverse market regions such as SE Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America....

Which is why Nestlé is doing so poorly, I guess.

[Fishface]

Which is why Nestlé is doing so poorly, I guess.

ok...I guess it depends on how much money you want to throw at it.

any ideas how much Nestle has?

[NotAllThere]

I don't know - but I was happy to help reduce the pile...

[Pondlife]

this is exactly what I'm talking about - full of cliches.

I'm not talking about broken process or inefficiencies - I'm talking about differences in region/markets/channels and more importantly change and the ability to deal with that.

Giant ERP's are a blunt instruments and don't work very well across diverse market regions such as SE Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America.

>>but the end result is inevitably a failure to realise the long term cost savings

revenue recognised every quarter - is that long term?

Can you explain this one to me?

[NotAllThere]

Sap don't work globally. Though many global companies beg to differ.

[Pondlife]

Sap don't work globally. Though many global companies beg to differ.

Must be a timezone thing.

[Ruprect]

forget that sap crud it's only a fad will be gone a in a year or so, get yourself into .Net go for the full MSDN certification and you won't look back

all the best

Milan.

tape changing

[TykeMerc]

Which is why Nestlé is doing so poorly, I guess.

And BAES, General Dynamics, Boeing, IBM, Dell, Daimler-Benz to name a few others which are global businesses that utilise their various ERP's in their highly diverse market places.

ERP's aren't the blunt instrument that you think they are, nor are they necessarily centralised beyond a core set of data, it's entirely possible for a global with differing regional requirements to have localised instances of their ERP with region specific configurations and global database links. Enterprise Resource Planning if utilised sensibly works at an Enterprise level of any scale of business including global.

However apparently you know better than all of the global businesses who have bought, installed and utilise their ERP's to manage their various business activities quite successfully.

[milanbenes]

this argument about companies having to change their business processes to fit the erp systems

this is a real phylosophical argument with many sides

there are companies who have processes in place, why do they do things that way.... because they always have, is it the best way.... they don't know

many companies would do well to have a look at their business processes and compare them to the erp standards and see what the fit gaps are and whether there are positive or negative reasons for the gaps

of course the erp systems are infinately customisable and can be changed to fit any business and these kinds of projects changing erp to fit some company set in its ways can be the most lucrative because of all the customisation work

but at the same time, companies would do well to take an open minded look at how they do things and whether they really are the best ways or simply because that's the way the lazy sods have always done it

no skin off my nose either way

to the question about the profitability of the chocolate factory, from the little I know they are doing very well

Milan.