Here's why your corporate computerization is stumbling

You've pulled the trigger, spent the big bucks, installed the ERP software at your company.

Now you're looking forward to the fantastic benefits the vendor promised: Instantaneous business information at your fingertips. An always-synchronized, always-reliable database that allows your front liners to make confident, quick decisions.

A single source of truth in which all information is mutually consistent across the board - where the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing. A central nervous system that'll make your organization nimble, fast-moving, customer-centric.

Can all of this really come without any pain?

Not so fast.

As the cliche goes, the devil is in the details - the details of execution. Top management may understand the concept, but look to your rank and file. Seriously. Dangers abound even after you've installed the system and you've announced that adoption of the solution is a done deal.

It's all about certain behaviors among the hands-on users. You have to watch out that these behaviors don't undermine your computerization effort.

Elsewhere on this page, in easy-to-understand flowchart form, is our experience-based take on why enterprise software can end up being disappointing in day-to-day use. Again, it's all about certain behaviors of rank-and-file users.
The original sins described in the three topmost boxes look mighty venial at first. Therein lies their lethality. The inattentive manager may let these seemingly small transgressions slide at first; when their repercussions start blowing up, the sins won't look so venial after all.

Original Sin #1: Too few workstation licenses.

This is a simple situation. Are people at your company lining up for a chance to input their transactions? Waiting for co-workers elsewhere in the company to finish encoding transactions? So they can have their turn at inputting their data?

Are the Cebu or Davao teams always complaining that the Manila people are hogging network access, or vice versa? Or are the users on the 3d floor complaining about the users on the 5th floor?

Then you're trying to maintain your ERP with too few workstation licenses.

The solution is obvious.

And get this: if you're committing Original Sin #1, then for sure you're also committing Original Sin #2 below.

Original Sin #2: Not observing "time discipline" in inputting and encoding transactions.

Let's face it. Salesmen, purchasers, billing and collection people need real-time info to do their jobs with dispatch. In fact, all customer-facing staff need up-to-date info to do a decent job.

No, scratch that; even non-customer-facing staff need up-to-date info to do their jobs efficiently and swiftly.


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