Most big ERP rollouts fall foul of e-business failures

That's the top level finding of a study by analyst AMR Research, which reveals that, specifically for companies with multi-million dollar ERP deployments, delays due to lack of B2B planning and integration can cost in excess of $45,000 a day. However, the problem also arises for manufacturers not in the super-big bracket, with nearly 85% of the companies surveyed claiming to have experienced delays in ERP rollouts due to the same problems. AMR's survey, which included respondents from the food and beverage, high tech and consumer products industries, as well as from automotive suppliers and OEMs, established a strong relationship between ERP projects and new B2B e-commerce needs. Key findings include that: 65% of respondents are performing inadequate testing of B2B prior to new ERP launches; 47% expand the scope of their B2B efforts during ERP projects; 79% have a greater than 1% error rate for B2B data; and 57% have experienced a production outage due to lack of B2B connectivity. Importantly, the AMR Research survey also found more than a third (34%) of data in ERP systems originates from outside the enterprise (customers, suppliers, 3PLs etc), demonstrating the criticality of integrating trading partner transactions and data with ERP systems. Says Steve Keifer, vice president of product and industry marketing at GXS: "The symbiotic nature of B2B and ERP is often overlooked, as many manufacturing companies tend to focus design, development and testing efforts on business processes within the four walls of their enterprise." And he adds: "Project leaders often forget the critical supply chain links and external data flows needed to power ERP applications. Too many companies get half-way through a new ERP roll-out to discover that they are not staffed to support the massive mapping, testing and trading partner management activities necessary for ERP upgrades."