12 ms·

Customization is key, you CAN't customize. I worked on an SAP implementation, a Fortune 500 company, complexity like crazy, sub-companies, of sub-companies,

Customization is key, you CAN't customize. I worked on an SAP implementation, a Fortune 500 company, complexity like crazy, sub-companies, of sub-companies, of sub-companies, federal, state and local compliance for what the company did, operating in 50 states, with an International supply chain, and our integrator was nothing special. We held firm to the NO CUSTOMIZATION rule, we re-engineered our processes to fit SAP. Other than a few hiccups when integrating all aspects of a company that has 100 sub companies, and is under federal, state and local regulation the project basically went off without a hitch. They are still taking upgrades 6 years later, without issue. Most companies think they are unique, and special, and feel justified in needed to customize, all those companies are wrong.

alistairSH 8y ago
I wish you worked for my customers.
manmal 8y ago
Do you think enterprises can even profit from adapting to SAP‘s structure (streamlining etc), or do you think this does not matter anyway?
- petepete 8y ago
  The profit is in having the ability to upgrade on a whim, to refer to the masses of documentation and expertise without having to translate it into your own lingo and to use off the shelf components without needing to customise them too.
  - manmal 8y ago
    Ok, so no organizational benefits?
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      Perhaps you need fewer people maintaining those business apps.
      - manmal 8y ago
        Well, adapting one‘s processes to a standard solution is a major change in your business, so I‘d expect some kind of effect..
      - petepete 8y ago
        Plus hiring and getting new employees up to speed is much much faster. This is especially useful with SAP consultants who are quite expensive. The initial cost may be high but once it's done it's savings at every step.
- fargozzi 8y ago
  Sap brings transparency to the processes inside your company. You don't know what is happening in the mind of you accountant on the other side of the World. How bills are issues and if these are payed correctly and in-time? How do we choose credit control, who is approving purchasing spends? Internal and external audits could not see whole picture and they are not there all the time and even more - if someone would like to hide something from them it could be easily done in most cases.
bumholio 8y ago
> we re-engineered our processes to fit SAP. That sounds just about like the most revolting and negative endorsement you can make for a business solution. Every company is special and the flexibility to adapt to a changing environment is what keeps a company alive during those times of crisis, that always come. "We can't do this because the system does not allow it" is great and expected at the warehouse worker level, annoying at the branch manager level and catastrophic at senior management level.
- barrkel 8y ago
  Competitive advantage is rarely in processes that a company is trying to replace or automate with third party software.
  - mbesto 8y ago
    ^ this. Coca Cola does their financials the same way Pepsico does. Yet both companies have tried to implement them in unique ways and subsequently have cost them a great deal in terms of IT implementation costs that offer little to no competitive advantage.
    - mgkimsal 8y ago
      potentially harder to poach people from the competition if you're both doing generic stuff but using proprietary, custom and opposite techniques?
      - rbanffy 8y ago
        That's a justification for writing an ERP in Brainfuck.
- d_e_solomon 8y ago
  As a former consultant in SAP - Most companies aren't that unique in how they execute most processes. For instance, AP payments generally looks the same at a high level. For the variations of business processes, SAP gives you lots of room to modify configuration to fit your process. If you're in a specialized industry like Aerospace or Oil and Gas, they have unique industry specific solutions. I've seen the flip side where people custom code the heck out of the system. That becomes impossible to upgrade and impossible to take advantage of new features. I've also seen lots of bad processes continued that could have been re-engineered to be good processes if the implementer and business had an honest conversation. SAP for better or worse forces these conversations by limiting the ways that you can implement the solution. SAP failed implementations are not unique from other software failed implementations. It doesn't fail because of the product; it fails because of the people and politics of the organization. SAP tends to make the headlines because of the size of the implementations and the eye watering costs.
qubex 8y ago
I’ve rolled out SAP throughout all three of our SME-sized family companies. My mantra has always been ”we don’t install SAP into our company; we mould our company into SAP”. Ten years in and the strategy seems to have worked.
- trhway 8y ago
  >we mould our company into SAP exactly. People from "unique" camp fail to recognize that SAP isn't just software, it is "best [business] practices" coded into that software, the practices distilled from huge experience during many years with many customers. Granted, for many techies any business practices/processes and related software look disgusting - this is why we're techies, not accountants. At some point in the bright future we'll develop super AI which will take over the world and abolish business processes....
jhh 8y ago
I think Martin Fowlers remarks on customization are illuminating. https://martinfowler.com/bliki/PackageCustomization.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/PackageCustomization.html
erikb 8y ago
This pretty much applies to _all_ software development as well, especially in a standard environment like ERP. There is not much need for new stuff, just learn the ropes for what already worked the last ten years, then handle the complexity of enterprise life with simply applying them. Creativity is only useful if you can handle >90% of the cases with ease already. And for a customer of enterprise software I would so much agree. In my experience the people who manage the integration with third party software usually have no clue what the software is about. Instead of being arrogant it would be much smarter to learn from the software vendor, who's an expert in his field and has seen dozens of customer environments, how to solve certain problems.
acdha 8y ago
The psychology is fascinating. I worked at a place with a heavily customized fork of a vendor system which was almost old enough to drink. They had a stable of developers in an increasingly uncommon language, upgrades were year+ exercises with hefty consulting bills, etc. but most of the management were convinced that this was the easiest option because everyone was used to it.

alistairSH 8y ago

I wish you worked for my customers.

manmal 8y ago

Do you think enterprises can even profit from adapting to SAP‘s structure (streamlining etc), or do you think this does not matter anyway?

petepete 8y ago
The profit is in having the ability to upgrade on a whim, to refer to the masses of documentation and expertise without having to translate it into your own lingo and to use off the shelf components without needing to customise them too.
- manmal 8y ago
  Ok, so no organizational benefits?
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    Perhaps you need fewer people maintaining those business apps.
    - manmal 8y ago
      Well, adapting one‘s processes to a standard solution is a major change in your business, so I‘d expect some kind of effect..
    - petepete 8y ago
      Plus hiring and getting new employees up to speed is much much faster. This is especially useful with SAP consultants who are quite expensive. The initial cost may be high but once it's done it's savings at every step.
fargozzi 8y ago
Sap brings transparency to the processes inside your company. You don't know what is happening in the mind of you accountant on the other side of the World. How bills are issues and if these are payed correctly and in-time? How do we choose credit control, who is approving purchasing spends? Internal and external audits could not see whole picture and they are not there all the time and even more - if someone would like to hide something from them it could be easily done in most cases.

bumholio 8y ago

> we re-engineered our processes to fit SAP. That sounds just about like the most revolting and negative endorsement you can make for a business solution. Every company is special and the flexibility to adapt to a changing environment is what keeps a company alive during those times of crisis, that always come. "We can't do this because the system does not allow it" is great and expected at the warehouse worker level, annoying at the branch manager level and catastrophic at senior management level.

barrkel 8y ago
Competitive advantage is rarely in processes that a company is trying to replace or automate with third party software.
- mbesto 8y ago
  ^ this. Coca Cola does their financials the same way Pepsico does. Yet both companies have tried to implement them in unique ways and subsequently have cost them a great deal in terms of IT implementation costs that offer little to no competitive advantage.
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    potentially harder to poach people from the competition if you're both doing generic stuff but using proprietary, custom and opposite techniques?
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      That's a justification for writing an ERP in Brainfuck.
d_e_solomon 8y ago
As a former consultant in SAP - Most companies aren't that unique in how they execute most processes. For instance, AP payments generally looks the same at a high level. For the variations of business processes, SAP gives you lots of room to modify configuration to fit your process. If you're in a specialized industry like Aerospace or Oil and Gas, they have unique industry specific solutions. I've seen the flip side where people custom code the heck out of the system. That becomes impossible to upgrade and impossible to take advantage of new features. I've also seen lots of bad processes continued that could have been re-engineered to be good processes if the implementer and business had an honest conversation. SAP for better or worse forces these conversations by limiting the ways that you can implement the solution. SAP failed implementations are not unique from other software failed implementations. It doesn't fail because of the product; it fails because of the people and politics of the organization. SAP tends to make the headlines because of the size of the implementations and the eye watering costs.

qubex 8y ago

I’ve rolled out SAP throughout all three of our SME-sized family companies. My mantra has always been ”we don’t install SAP into our company; we mould our company into SAP”. Ten years in and the strategy seems to have worked.

trhway 8y ago
>we mould our company into SAP exactly. People from "unique" camp fail to recognize that SAP isn't just software, it is "best [business] practices" coded into that software, the practices distilled from huge experience during many years with many customers. Granted, for many techies any business practices/processes and related software look disgusting - this is why we're techies, not accountants. At some point in the bright future we'll develop super AI which will take over the world and abolish business processes....

jhh 8y ago

I think Martin Fowlers remarks on customization are illuminating. https://martinfowler.com/bliki/PackageCustomization.html https://martinfowler.com/bliki/PackageCustomization.html

erikb 8y ago

This pretty much applies to _all_ software development as well, especially in a standard environment like ERP. There is not much need for new stuff, just learn the ropes for what already worked the last ten years, then handle the complexity of enterprise life with simply applying them. Creativity is only useful if you can handle >90% of the cases with ease already. And for a customer of enterprise software I would so much agree. In my experience the people who manage the integration with third party software usually have no clue what the software is about. Instead of being arrogant it would be much smarter to learn from the software vendor, who's an expert in his field and has seen dozens of customer environments, how to solve certain problems.

acdha 8y ago

The psychology is fascinating. I worked at a place with a heavily customized fork of a vendor system which was almost old enough to drink. They had a stable of developers in an increasingly uncommon language, upgrades were year+ exercises with hefty consulting bills, etc. but most of the management were convinced that this was the easiest option because everyone was used to it.