A big theme for CFOs this year is to reduce enterprise costs. That’s no surprise. But what is new is that CFOs seem to be inching closer to the idea of ERP consolidation—despite the risks and headaches that would surely be involved. Recent APQC research confirms that a growing number of CFOs and their counterparts in
APQC has learned that senior managers increasingly feel their investments in ERP—and ongoing investments to get the best possible value from such systems—are harder to justify. In many cases, the issue is due largely to the proliferation of multiple, individualized platforms—and that makes best-practice performance
In the
- 60 percent said a convoluted ERP environment hurts the business by making it hard to access high-quality data fast enough to effectively support decision making,
- 53 percent said they suffer from poor cross-enterprise collaboration and co-ordination,
- 52 percent complained about sub-optimized processes that in turn lead to lower-than-desired operational performance in terms of costs, cycle times, resource waste, and misalignment of human capital.
Clearly, most organizations have been either “kicking the can down the road” or failing in efforts to get more strategic value from their ERP investments. That’s disconcerting given the increased competitive pressures in many sectors today. A well-configured and dynamic ERP environment—accompanied by a mature approach to business process management—can surely make a difference in an organization’s ability to compete by enabling faster time-to-market and faster time-to-value, among other things. Surely, CFOs can think of multiple reasons why they should avoid this idea like they’d avoid a plague. But, the research suggests a tipping point may be near.