Case studies
Failed ERP Programme; Analysis & Report
SECTOR
Medical Devices
SPECIALISM
Procurement
FOCUS
Evaluation and recommendations : root cause analysis, corrective recommendations, and future strategy
OVERVIEW
This medical devices business was struggling to effectively implement a global ERP solution. The programme had suffered from a series of delays which resulted in a revised anticipated total duration of 7 years for completion of the global rollout.
Due to the internal political pressure to achieve initial country-level implementation, the expectation had been set that a heavily-revised system blueprint would be developed in parallel with the implementation of the compromised Ph.I configuration and implemented retrospectively. Unfortunately, this would result in significant abortive workload and wasted investment.
The first 2 country implementations failed at go-live, causing severe impacts on business operations including the inability to place orders with suppliers, manage inventory, receive and process customer orders, despatch products, pay suppliers, or issue invoices.
These countries were unable to trade for a period of several weeks, with substantial damage to their customer reputation and financial performance.
We were initially asked to operate as Subject Matter Expert to review the Purchase To Pay work stream and solution, and to provide our observations and recommendations.
We also supported the client in its evaluation of a range of other finance systems and services as part of its future systems strategy.
VISIBILTY
To ensure we formed a full understanding of the new PTP solution we obtained core documents including the formally approved Business Requirements, Purchase To Pay process diagrams, financial authorisation matrices, user roles and responsibilities, and the system blueprint.
In addition, we worked closely with key stakeholders from the global parent organisation, Procurement, and Finance, to define the business requirements for potential additional components of a more expansive Procurement/Finance systems strategy comprising Credit Cards, Expense Management, ePayables, and Dynamic Discounting.
VALUE
Our observations and recommendations relating to the Purchase To Pay solution included more than 400 points of improvement spanning Critical Issues, Core Functionality, and Nice To Have features. This led to us being asked to join the Purchase To Pay work stream to contribute to the revised solution design.
The evaluation of Credit Cards, Expense Management, ePayables, and Dynamic Discounting services led to two fundamental outcomes : 1. key considerations for systems projects which would be managed by the client, and, 2. the conclusion that, for some services platforms, the client’s purchasing transactions profile (the number of payments, and the aggregate annual third party spend) was insufficient to create a Return On Investment.
Our evaluations and outputs helped the client achieve a far clearer understanding of how to rectify its Purchase To Pay solution, and provided key considerations for the creation of a powerful transactions management suite of services.
Full review
Oracle global P2P solution
>400
Recommended corrective actions and improvements
4
Associated transactions management services evaluated
EFFECTIVENESS
Following our evaluation of the Purchase To Pay documentation we submitted a comprehensive report which set out a range of observations including :
The P2P in-house work stream team did not have the necessary experience to design a solution which was fit for purpose.
The Business Requirements were incomplete and/or fundamentally flawed in many areas.
Technical resources from the appointed ERP solution architect did not adequately assess the business requirements and did not challenge key aspects of the proposed solution which could have been foreseen as likely to fail.
The system testing process was inadequate due to a combination of an insufficient number of test scripts, and inadequate depth and rigour in test scripts themselves.
Failure to identify and record system errors at the testing stage, which resulted in errors not being rectified prior to the implementation of the solution.
The extraction of incomplete and poor-quality data from legacy systems, which was imported into the new ERP system without being cleansed, completed, rationalised, or ehnaced.
As part of a core team we evaluated transactions management services comprising Credit Cards, Expense Management, ePayables, and Dynamic Discounting. We created formal enquiry documents, evaluated responses and proposals, and collectively formed strategy recommendations.