TELEFON D?NLEME

D?NLEME C?HAZI

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10151545-16.h...

i.e. its not the Google servlet engine that makes Google its Google.

The theory of your claim can and does work extremely well when various pieces of software can be collected, customized and centralized to specifically dictate the unique business process requirements of a company. Those pieces, cobbled together, creates the process factory for the company in question.

Eg. a learning management system that actually acts as a social learning engine, not as an archaic course management tool, combined with a proper talent management/succession planning tool, combined with a sales cycle forecasting/prospecting/tracking tool, combined with a robust budgeting & analysis application, combined with <insert sales, human, asset and/or technology tool> etc etc etc

In my opinion, this is extremely difficult to achieve with an ERP.

Enterprise software development companies such as SAP et al certainly try to bring this perceived panacea to fruition, but the reality is that it often takes loads of customization (software development customization, not necessarily business process customization) to achieve the desired end state.

This is where the hay falls off the wagon as the more one customizes an ERP, the less likely it is — ironically I might add — to achieve the desired customized business process end state. Customizing the ERP requires gobs of money, and when an upgrade presents itself downstream to 'improve' the ERP, it's likely to involve even more dollars in order to retrofit the upgrade into the older and ultimately customized ERP system currently in place.

I guess my ultimate argument is that the ERP system is in fact inflexible, and although configurable, it is at times much easier to purchase separate software pieces to achieve your desired business process end state. It allows for easier customization and upgrades over time.

Whatever happened with your argument about the mash-up anyway? Isn't this the basis for Enterprise 2.0???

Things are bit more complex in the real world and BTW I saw your interview on the Charlie Show.

Your analogy makes it sound that it is very easy to configure business processes in ERP systems like SAP. Matter of the fact is that, ERP systems are generally so rigid and fixed, that changing standard business processes is a nightmare and these changes often result in the “dreaded” customizations which companies find very hard to manage and maintain.
Hence, currently ERP customers mostly use standard business processes that provides very limited competitive differentiation.

SAPs of the world need to go a component based model and leave the designing of the business processes (using these components to the innovative minds of the digital factory ). This will enable the smarter companies to get competitive differentiation by being able to configure better and flexible processes.

I have to respectfully disagree. In reality, use of enterprise software of the likes sold by SAP or Oracle has not been significant beyond double-entry book-keeping and logistics. And we all know how wasteful (in the view of Japanese production concepts) double-entry book keeping is.

Better research is needed to quantitatively tie firm competitive advantage to its innovative use of enterprise IT. It is difficult to see the correlation if Toyota can run the most competitive auto company in the world with hand signals and ad hoc changes on the manufacturing world, and GM, a poster child of a idiocracy with umpteen enterprise systems and yes, SAP.

I think you could also use this approach to integrate a set of cooperative strategies that are also (often) in play when the “process factory” is put to work within a given enterprise.

This could be particularly helpful for those of us who are trying to determine how competitive and cooperative paradigms necessarily intermingle in today’s world.

I would even add one extension. As you said, the process is important. And how you mange the process.

Your quote; So even if you and I buy the same basic factory from [Leo], we`re going to do very different things with it.

I would argue that even if you **were** doing the same thing with it, (ie direct competitors making a widget) The management and processes are the variables, not the factory.

His sales reps outsell yours 5 to 1

His aged inventory is 1/3 of yours

His defect rate is almost zero while yours is 12%

His first time accurate and on time delivery is 97%, yours is 40

The factory is the commodity in this analogy – but how you **manage** that commodity is where competitive advantage lies

And ditto for technology -

However, I do believe that the source of competitive advantage is not in the features and functions of the software, but in the ability to configure/customize the software to unique business processes.