Why businesses are failing to maximise on ERP

New research published this week by Accenture claims that at least a third of UK and US businesses are only using 62% capacity of enterprise resource planning systems.

This means, Accenture said, that companies are missing out on data-sharing benefits that could boost them to the next level of business. Jeremy Oates, UK head of systems integration and technology consultation at Accenture, said that the problem was partially due to outdated views of ERP.

"Part of the challenge is that organisations can take a traditional view of ERP and sometimes see such systems as monolithic and inflexible, rather than understanding that the more mature and agile software that exists today can enable companies not only to manage core business processes, but actively distinguish themselves from competitors," he said.

Other reasons for the lack of utilization of ERP arising from the survey were a lack of time to learn to use the technology, and a belief within businesses that they did not need to use it.

Inatech’s Simon Ellis highlighted costs and the ever-present specter of the recession as another reason for business’ failure to cash in on the technology. “In tough times organisations may reduce their spending on new systems, but ideally they should be sweating their existing assets,” Ellis explained.

“Some organisations have missed an opportunity in the past few months of gaining competitive advantage by leveraging their ERP systems to the fullest potential, either to improve the bottom line or gain greater agility for when we come out of the recession. Gaining greater insight into supply chains, costs etc can all reap real benefits. Is it a case of spending a little to save a lot?”

Some organisations, Ellis continued, simply do not take their investment of funds, time and attention far enough to truly gain from it: “Many organisations are just glad to see an ERP implementation over and in. The real benefits come by sweating their investment and gaining additional insight, which was almost always part of the original business case but can be often forgotten.”