[throwaway_2q121]

I've been working in this field a bit, not the big two SAP/Oracle but a smaller ERP(PAAS/SAAS) player. Our solutions manage a few steel plants in Slovenia.

The way I see it is that it's tough, solutions are rarely chosen based on technical merits. It's a mix of "nobody gets fired for choosing SAP/Oracle", decisionmaker's ignorance, having someone who will be there to point the finger at in 5 years and... politics.

The bigger the company, the harder it gets to find anyone who would know or care what the hell is going on in the company and what their needs are. The few cases where you can win over SAP/Oracle is when a company is cornered because they have either failed to implement one of the big player's solution or they are out of money so they have to "compromise". IMHO having to "compromise" has turned out very well for some. The level of customization that we did would be very hard or impossible to achieve with SAP/Oracle.

[bigger_cheese]

The Steel plant I work at uses SAP, though personally I don't touch it and only know vague details about it.

I know all non-routine maintenance, mandatory inspections, contractors and warehouse supplies etc is booked in it. Stuff like fire extinguishers, elevator mechanic call outs for breakdowns, replacement hydraulic fluid stuff like that is done via SAP. I think even general 'consumables' stuff like toner for printers in offices / control rooms, fluorescent light tube replacement etc are managed by it.

When you think about it these systems are horrendously complicated.