MORE ABOUT SOFTWARE

Now that we’ve kicked the ERP topic around a bit, let’s double back
on the software issue. Software for ERP is like a set of golf clubs. You
could give the greatest, most expensive set of golf clubs ever made to
either one of your friendly authors, but they wouldn’t break 120.
Why? It’s simple; neither of us knows how to play golf.
On the other hand, let’s say we send Tiger Woods out on the pro
tour with only a four-wood and a sand wedge. Would Tiger win any
tournaments? Not a chance. He’d never even make the cut. The reason:
To be competitive at the highest levels of the game, you need a
full set of clubs in the bag.
Enterprise Resource Planning 15
Two principles flow from this analogy:
1. The acquisition of the tools, of and by itself, will not make you
proficient in their use and thus will not provide a competitive
advantage.
2. To be truly competitive, you need a good and reasonably complete
set of tools.
Too many companies have bought an extremely expensive set of
“golf clubs” (an enterprise software system) but haven’t learned how
to play golf. That’s why we read about so many “ERP failures” in the
business press. The fact of the matter is that ERP hasn’t failed at all
in those cases; it hasn’t even been attempted. Saying that ERP failed
in these cases is like saying that golf failed because one of your authors
bought a $2,000 set of golf clubs and didn’t break 120. Golf
failed? Makes no sense.