141–150 of 227 posts
Years ago I did some contract work for a company that was being taken over by a competitor. The consensus in the business was that implementing SAP had weakened the business so much they had become an easy target for takeover.
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 SA…
> 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…
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).
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 SA…
> 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…
I’m strongly agreeing with the GP: it’s both better and cheaper to at least meet half way with software like this. It’s simpler to change processes than to customize business systems.
What becomes painful is that the deployment of some new business system now became a massive reorganization and a complete overhaul of all business processes. But this is still less painful than customizing SAP to any large degree.
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…
In defense of ... well actually I don’t know whom I defending here, but what is undereported by German media in this case is “Scheinselbständigkeit”. The remainder of the story then fits the common narrative that developers share about SAP (look, enterprise software in action) and consultants (all overpaid underperformers).
“Scheinselbständigkeit” is a legal term, translatable as “fake entrepreneurialism” and a common problem for German IT freelancers and contractors because it basically states, that you aren’t a freelancer if you serve one client exclusively for more than 6 consecutive months. This could result in huge fines for you but more likely your client as you become retroactively an employee of your client which in turn must pay social security for the years you served him.
It is still a vague term though and in result causes a giant legal grey area, which in turn results in each sector copying what its dominant company’s legal team declared.
For Lidl this means that in the middle of this project, they just happened to fire all of the freelancers.
You can imagine the impact: the most capable and experienced developers had to be replaced with inexperienced freshmen or stuff had to be outsourced to agencies staffed with inexperienced freshmen.
In Short: Lidl’s legal team messed that one up. In defense of ... well actually I don’t know whom I defending here, but what is undereported by German media in this case is “Scheinselbständigkeit”. The remainder of the story then fits the common narrative that developers share about SAP (look, enterprise software in action) and consultants (all overpaid underperformers). “Scheinselbständigkeit” is a legal term, trans…
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 SA…
In Short: Lidl’s legal team messed that one up. In defense of ... well actually I don’t know whom I defending here, but what is undereported by German media in this case is “Scheinselbständigkeit”. The remainder of the story then fits the common narrative that developers share about SAP (look, enterprise software in action) and consultants (all overpaid underperformers). “Scheinselbständigkeit” is a legal term, trans…
Any idea how much the savings was that they risked a 500M write-off to avoid?