I evaluate experiences with SAP implementations to formulate some actual conclusions. In this work I investigate also the list of ERP failures in the year 2011 to find the reasons for troubles:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222864/10_biggest_ERP_software_failures_of_2011
So far I found that two first items on the list are no ERP implementations but tailored developed payroll solutions (NHS RiO project and City Time project in NY). What can be interesting the first one was conducted with Agile and PRINCE2 on the top (as usually in public sector in Britain)
The third and sixth on the list are SAP ERP implementations. But as I see the both do not fulfill the hard criteria of failure.
The third on the list (SAP by Ingram Micro) was not failure at all – rather smart excuse. First the project ended successfully in time. The potential discrepancy was foreseen (second). Three is that there was no drop in the trade (as the alleged result of discrepancy) because the reve and gross profit were in two first quarters of 2011 higher y2y. The drop was in net income – it means that blaming of SAP was rather smart excuse for some other costs – probably the invoices of implementation?
Now I am evaluating the very interested case of Marine County - civil suit against Deloitte and SAP. This is very interesting since this is very good documented and described and publicly available in Internet. There you can find contracts (with prices!) and court documents.
To keep it short: implementation was completed and paid due to the agreement mid of 2007. It is still unclear why - once the implementation was completed Marin County raised very serious claims against Deloitte and SAP. The report made by independent auditor shows that system is working in 2010 in scope even wider than described in first implementation contracts.
Deloitte claimed that County never used the procedure of rejection of services as they were provided. The agreement even permitted the County under certain conditions to provide a written report about deficiencies in already approved services and deliverables. The County accepted all services and deliverables and never provided any written reports of such kind.
For sure customer is very unhappy – as I found in the claims the arguments against Deloitte seems very weak in the area of implementation process – only small pieces is describing some mistakes in the system. But that (points 60 to 70 in the body of claim) are more description of some art of conflict between consultants rather than serious implementation problems.
To the point: project ended with time, system still working. The disruptions after go live in 2006 and by the very end in 2007 are described only on very general level . We have to wait till the court will clear this but for today it is to early to talk about this project as about failure.
Probably the information can help in your activities.
