30. August 2009 by admin.

CIO magazine reports on 10 famous disasters, dustups and disappointments.  Troubled multimillion-dollar software deals that produce spectacular failures and huge spending nightmares; vendor marketing bravado that breeds cut-throat competition and contempt; and embarrassing and costly lawsuits over botched implementations and intellectual property breaches.  It’s no wonder ERP has such a bad reputation among executives. All of this drama is, in fact, creating a nasty and very real ERP backlash. Consider CIO.com’s brief and semi-chronological history of 10 ERP scandals as a warning if you’re contemplating an upgrade or implementation.

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24. August 2009 by admin.

A recently reported court action against a vendor highlights the importance of ensuring a project is correctly resourced.  The complainant states that the vendor "… did not have and was not able to dedicate resources to the project, resulting in an immediate delay."  The vendor is being sued by a non-profit organization for more than $1 million over the failure of an ERP project.

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23. August 2009 by admin.

One of the 10 steps to a successful implementation identified by Rob Gordy, VP, professional services at Revelwood, a provider of Business Performance Management solutions, is taking ownership.  It’s a principle that applies to billing projects as well.  Ownership, he says, starts at the analysis and design (A&D) sessions and progresses through the lifecycle of the project. Although there is an initial dependence on the implementation partner for knowledge of the software, application and project development, an immediate and ongoing transfer must occur while the consultants are still working on the components and phases of the project.

“The single biggest ownership issue is testing,” said Gordy. “You can’t wait until the project is completed before beginning testing. This allows you to develop a better understanding of the drivers and functions of the system.”

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22. August 2009 by admin.

The Australian Financial Review recently reported on energy utility AGL’s billing system overhaul, known as Project Phoenix, which has been struggling for some time to meet the ambitious savings targets it set at its inception in 2006.  At the time the company forecast savings of up to $70 million a year from 2008 onwards.  However the deadline for achieving benefits from the $200 million billing systems overhaul has been pushed back, after problems it experienced following the migration of customers to a new SAP system caused costs to blow out (and they’re surprized?).  Spending on the project, which was originally budgeted for $80 - $90 million had swelled to $215 million by the February reporting  season and has now increased to just over $230 million.

This is another lesson for those who select billing systems – while estimating savings targets is a wet-finger exercise; achieving them is something else.

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20. August 2009 by admin.

In the quest to cut implementation costs, some IT vendors are coming up with standardized solutions.  However “standardized solution” is just another name for the con-game that SAP foisted on the unsuspecting - “world’s best practice”.  What is world’s best practice?  Sorry, that’s not the real question.  The real question is “What isn’t world’s best practice” and the answer to that is “Whatever our software lacks in functionality”.  However, vendors mean well (as my mother used to retort, “So did Adolph Hitler”) and they’re forever seeking ways to appear to reduce the implementation pain so you’ll buy their software.

The latest to join in is Computer Associates (CA).  As part of its larger Lean IT strategy, CA is rolling out 17 new and upgraded Standardized Services designed to make the deployment and implementation of CA software projects easier, faster and more efficient. CA offers more than 70 such Standardized Services, which offer repeatable methods for implementation, which lead to faster ROI and greater IT value, according to CA officials. The new services touch on such areas as application performance management, infrastructure management and mainframes.

Not, you will notice, complex software like utility billing.

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19. August 2009 by admin.

In a recent article on implementing software solutions in Supply Chain Management, one of the five main points made for a successful project was “Listen to the skeptics”.  Here’s what was said “Where there’s enthusiasm, it’s natural to downplay anyone who wants to throw cold water on the project. That can be a mistake because the naysayers who appear once a design is on the table are most often the people who are presently running your operation. Like Mickey Rourke’s advice to William Hurt, they’re going to see the 25 things you overlooked. “Most of us design for the routine, but the operations people have to handle the exceptions to the routine,” says Apple. “When they raise questions, you need to be able to answer them or you don’t have a good solution.” If the exceptions happen infrequently, a simple, manual workaround may address the issue. What’s important is that the objections are acknowledged and addressed since the naysayers will be running the new system.”

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2. August 2009 by admin.

From time to time bloggers comment on the “six [or five or ten] key points” about software vendor selection.  Ignoring sticker shock (price) surely the principal element must be “does the vendor understand all of the elements of public sector billing?”.  Sadly many do not.  I reviewed a bespoke utility billing application recently where the billing side was world class.  It carried out some of the elements of interval billing in the energy market like nothing else I’ve seen.  However its designer knew nothing of double-entry book-keeping.  It’s incapable of producing reliably even the most basic entries for export to a general ledger.  It’s implemented, the bills are churning out, the customers are paying - and the utility has no idea, apart from money in the bank, how their business is faring.

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