[AllegedAlec]

> most bad implementations are because people are trying to buck the system they bought, rather than work with it, understand how your ERP, eCommerce or other system does a workflow and match it.

This is insane cope. We make technology to assist end users perform the tasks they do. To say "well you're doing the task wrong, the tool is made so you do task X way instead" is to put the cart in front of the horse.

[whstl]

It's not really anyone saying "you're doing the task wrong", it's more like "you're doing it only so slightly differently that we need a few months to write customizations for it. We'll send you the bill".

Those big ERPs are not really blank canvases, but when you need those micro-customizations in the wrong place, they can become one.

End users involved in the integration don't really want to learn new processes or even do things slightly different, as they know that changing process often involves burning a lot of political capital and they often lack awareness to know that "just using the ERP the way it's intended" is cheaper. And consultants are experts in finding a chance to perform those micro changes. It's a perfect marriage.

[J_cst]

I understand your point, but that's not how things work. If you source the right ERP you will be presented with procedures and processes that have been streamlined and optimized leveraging previous experiences of literally hundreds of businesses. Smaller and larger than yours. It's an error to dismiss the standard solution without deep consideration. Any process into a good ERP (e.g. managing a deposit payment, managing stock, documents transformation, uniqueness of product codes, and so on) is battle tested and may be ready to solve issues that at the moment your company in not seeing, but perhaps will have to face with the growth of the next five years and in five years perhaps you'll see the reasons why things were setup that way into the ERP. I have been happily humbled more than once by that. Check how things are supposed to work into your ERP, understand them and comply. That's how to have a functioning ERP in your company. Or just don't buy it and go for excel, it's cheaper (but just at the beginning, be warned).

[calvinmorrison]

Just to add... a lot of processes are very defined. I know HN loves to startups that reinvent the wheel but things like GAAP are pretty much the same workflows in any biz. AP, AR, SO, POs, etc.

[calvinmorrison]

A cope with what? Thats literally correct. The tool was made to replace 5 assistants, accountants and paper pushers. There's a design to this ginormous system that works best when you lean into it.

Its why picking the right ERP is very iimportat

[_DeadFred_]

Not really though. We make technology to make SYSTEMs/Processes work, not individual tasks. Take ERP to an MRP level (manufacturing resource planning). It doesn't matter how it works best for Bob, we need to be able to have the part Bob schedules/orders from vendors/makes/QAs/builds from lower level parts feed what they feed when needed in a way that we can consistently/correctly plan, and that follows possible certification authorities requirements/pre-approved processes. This gets especially complicated on say an aerospace production line that has in the high five figures of different parts, with complex individual build configurations with each component in configurable items having it's own lead time, and where everything is JIT because otherwise you would have to sit on inventory levels worth multiples of what the entire company is worth, and every individual item/lot/etc needs to be tracked in perpetuity.