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LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

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Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#131

Post by hibbelig »

mbesto wrote: post #75
nraynaud wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't they split the project and try to introduce the tool or fail by pieces? I know management and sales wants big figures to compute a mass discount and be in the press, but in the nitty gritty, isn't it better to screw up only part of the company?

Yes - most roll-outs will do phase approaches (unclear if Lidl did this or not). A good strategy is to do a smaller country roll-out for example, learn all of the lessons and then roll it out elsewhere. It's however not a blanket strategy and requires context to decide which is the right way.

Lidl rolled it out in the smaller countries, learned the lesson that it's not going to work, and stopped it.

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#132

Post by d_e_solomon »

dragonwriter wrote: post #116
d_e_solomon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> SAP failed implementations are unique from other software failed implementations. No, they aren't. > It doesn't fail because of the product; it fails because of the people and politics of the organization. Essentially all project failure are for that reason. (Including ones where one intermediary step on the route to failure was that the people and politics in the organization ended up selecting a solution that was…

Yes, that's what I meant - they're not unique. Sorry for the typo :)

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#133

Post by freehunter »

d_e_solomon wrote: post #114
bumholio wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

>Most companies aren't that unique in how they execute most processes

As a current "big expensive system" consultant (not for SAP, completely different company and line of work), I 100% agree. Every single client I've worked with has shown me a network diagram and with a grin asked if they're the most unique company I've ever worked with. The answer is almost always no. There's just not that many unique ways to do things, and it always comes down to two or three very similar processes done by two or three very similar pieces of software done in almost exactly the same way that produces almost exactly the same result.

The only thing that sets "unique" companies apart is a lack of culture, or a negative culture. Like you said, bad processes that could be re-engineered into good processes if only the company was able to be honest with itself. Unfortunately changing people and process is harder than changing technology and vendors, so if something doesn't fit perfect you just throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, throw a fit in the press, and never address that your company culture is so inflexible that no major project involving an outside vendor could ever possibly be a success.

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#134

Post by berns »

syntaxing wrote: post #68

Anyone have a good recommendation for SAP alternative for small medium businesses (SMB)? All the companies I work for use something equally convoluted like Oracle and SAP. When I worked at a startup, I debated for a long time which ERP/PDM system will be the most effective (which I never answered).

Odoo, which is open source (python and postgresql).

https://www.odoo.com/page/compare-odoo-vs-sap

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#135

Post by freehunter »

dragonwriter wrote: post #116
d_e_solomon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> SAP failed implementations are unique from other software failed implementations. No, they aren't. > It doesn't fail because of the product; it fails because of the people and politics of the organization. Essentially all project failure are for that reason. (Including ones where one intermediary step on the route to failure was that the people and politics in the organization ended up selecting a solution that was…

The last big project failure I had was due to the company selecting the right technology for the problem, but the wrong one for the company culture. The company's engineers were young and viewed themselves as a startup, which means they like to use bleeding-edge solutions. The company themselves were an old enterprise with well-worn problems, and picked exactly the technology they should have. Unfortunately a newer, sexier product was part of the selection process, and the engineering staff didn't like that management picked the "wrong" one. They stonewalled the project until it failed, management complained about how inflexible the product was, and they switched to the other, newer, sexier product (I work for a vendor-agnostic consulting organization, so I stayed on for both products) and we ended up developing custom solutions for every problem we encountered with the new sexy product. Solutions that were solved out of the box with the older and more mature product.

It was $110m down the drain on the first product, then another $80m to purchase the second, plus the cost of my consulting time to create custom solutions.

People and politics are the hardest part of any technology implementation. Any article I see blaming SAP, IBM, Oracle, HP, etc of botching a multi-million dollar public project, I always have to wonder: who went wrong... not what went wrong.

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#136

Post by 394549 »

pmyteh wrote: post #90
blattimwind wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pulled the kill chord. pulled the plug > For years, Lidl is expanding operations. For years, Lidl has expanded operations. > high-turnover countries high-volume or high-revenue

> > pulled the kill chord. > pulled the plug Kill cords are a thing (on powerboats, particularly) and the original metaphor is fine. > > For years, Lidl is expanding operations. > For years, Lidl has expanded operations. 'For years, Lidl has been expanding operations'. Past continuous tense is better if the expansion's still going on. > > high-turnover countries > high-volume or high-revenue High-turnover is complete…

> Kill cords are a thing (on powerboats, particularly) and the original metaphor is fine.

The expression "pulling the plug" is idiomatic English (at least in the North American variety). "Pulled the kill chord" may be an accurate metaphor, but the audience is far less likely to be familiar with the reference.

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#137

Post by solarkraft »

rushabh wrote: post #87
kokey wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every few years, over the past 20 years, I look around to see if there are any open source contenders in the ERP space. There are usually a couple, but you never get to hear about them again. I think it's a difficult space to enter and succeed in and I think most efforts probably underestimate the complexity and isn't funded or run well enough to tackle that adequately.

ERPNext has been around for a decade now and doing quite well! https://github.com/frappe/erpnext . Founder here, happy to answer questions.

Did you underestimate the complexity? Did you limit scope to not go insane? What is the typical size/complexity of a typical using company? Could LIDL have used your software for 500M€, could they have even implemented their completely own solution for that money? Thanks!

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#138

Post by iron0013 »

rwallace wrote: post #99
misja111 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What SAP and Oracle have in common is that they have a very capable sales force, that is able to convince companies that their business case will fit nicely into their model. Then, once the implementation is ongoing and it turns out that there are some corner cases which were overlooked and that don't fit into the SAP model at all, SAP has another option available: hire their expensive consultants. Depending on how l…

Do you know of any case studies of companies being completely destroyed by this process? I have certainly heard of such projects getting into trouble, would be interested to know of any cases where it went as far as the customer going bankrupt.

I've read that Target's botched expansion into Canada was largely attributable to SAP being awful. They haven't gone bankrupt, but years later their stock is still reeling.

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#139

Post by sangnoir »

nawitus wrote: post #128
detuur wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your company isn't special. Look at it from an engineering perspective. The law, by which I mean all laws that you operate under—local, regional, state-level, federal, international alike—is really not much more than a specification that you have to adhere to. More active markets and more rules and laws you're bound to just means a more complex set of specifications. Just like in the software world, we need a pro…

The space of possibility within the confines of law is very large.

This is true, with the caveat that most points are clustered. It is possible to translate from one point to another (the "one SAP true way", for instance) within this space by re-engineering processes. Parent's point is - this is easier than most people assume - especially those who say "our business is unique"

Re: LIDL cancels SAP introduction after spending 500M Euro

#140

Post by dragonwriter »

freehunter wrote: post #135
dragonwriter wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SAP failed implementations are unique from other software failed implementations. No, they aren't. > It doesn't fail because of the product; it fails because of the people and politics of the organization. Essentially all project failure are for that reason. (Including ones where one intermediary step on the route to failure was that the people and politics in the organization ended up selecting a solution that was…

The last big project failure I had was due to the company selecting the right technology for the problem, but the wrong one for the company culture. The company's engineers were young and viewed themselves as a startup, which means they like to use bleeding-edge solutions. The company themselves were an old enterprise with well-worn problems, and picked exactly the technology they should have. Unfortunately a newer,…

> The last big project failure I had was due to the company selecting the right technology for the problem, but the wrong one for the company culture.

The company culture is a central piece of any business problem you are addressing, if your solution doesn't address it, it isn't addressing the actual problem, but at best a lower-dimensional projection.

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