SAP Africa director: Modernising company systems is critical for the future

[Luis]

SAP Africa director: Modernising company systems is critical for the future

Although many South African organisations may be reluctant to transition to modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, SAP says doing so is critical to future-proofing local businesses.

This is the view of SAP Africa director of customer evolution Gerhard Alberts, who said many organisations run highly customised legacy systems that have evolved over decades.

 

[Jefferson D'Arcy]

Hi @Luis

Welcome aboard!

Are you familiar with the Turing Test?

 

[dontcryforme]

Alberts emphasised that enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation is not a simple technical upgrade. A critical factor in migration success is organisational readiness and strong leadership.

Alberts is basically saying that SPAR didn't want to deal with a middleman so that SAP can pay out kickbacks to their corrupt buddies and that is the reason that SAP failed at SPAR.

 

[B-1]

 

[Johand]

Many a business is not that happy about SAP S/4 forced migration. Imagine having to reimplement ERP with no clear business case (and I mean real business case, not the technology people said so), sucking energy from things that they need to focus on, introducing massive risk in the business etc etc.

I see a lot of businesses like Remini Street doing good business. And that is right.

SAP certainly didn't act like a partner with the S4 transition. This is more like holding a knife against their customers throats.

 

[ToxicBunny]

A migration to S4 sounds like the perfect opportunity to engage competitors and migrate away from Sap really.

 

[Johand]

A migration to S4 sounds like the perfect opportunity to engage competitors and migrate away from Sap really.

As long as they don't migrate to Oracle. The ERP games seems to be rigged...

 

[ToxicBunny]

As long as they don't migrate to Oracle. The ERP games seems to be rigged...

It's always been rigged in my opinion, and all the options are shyte from my experience.

 

[Johand]

It's always been rigged in my opinion, and all the options are shyte from my experience.

It started in the 1990s. The big boogie man of the Y2K problem was the scarecrow people responded to. From then on it was all about fear sells. "You need to upgrade to keep being supported." never mind that support was so minimal. The same code base being recycled and recycled with minor changes and very little incremental business value because they know the support boogie man primes the wheel.

 

[ToxicBunny]

It started in the 1990s. The big boogie man of the Y2K problem was the scarecrow people responded to. From then on it was all about fear sells. "You need to upgrade to keep being supported." never mind that support was so minimal. The same code base being recycled and recycled with minor changes and very little incremental business value because they know the support boogie man primes the wheel.

They've cottoned onto the subscription model now as well... Now they can keep getting paid and do fsck all to justify it.

 

[bixt]

Im currently spearheading a massive ERP migration.

Alberts is basically saying that SPAR didn't want to deal with a middleman so that SAP can pay out kickbacks to their corrupt buddies

Its not. SAP sells licences, you need a local "implementation partner" to actually do the BPR and the work.

One companies implementation will be chalk and cheese from another.

Local in this case is not fronting - Im sick of paying accom and flights for overseas people. And paying in $s. We can only afford rands.

and that is the reason that SAP failed at SPAR.

Implementation partner F******ed up the business model and forgot the Coke rebates . Spar (and most others) sells coke and makes money on the annual rebate not the markup. Ignore the rebate was poor business analysis and then implementation. Don't blame SAP itself (as much as I hate them).

Many a business is not that happy about SAP S/4 forced migration. Imagine having to reimplement ERP with no clear business case (and I mean real business case, not the technology people said so), sucking energy from things that they need to focus on, introducing massive risk in the business etc etc.

100% True - it if aint broke, and you dont need new features - there is ZERO need to migrate for no reason.

It's always been rigged in my opinion, and all the options are shyte from my experienc

100% true also. They are ALL shyte. In the end we are now buying pieces from diff local (SA priced vendors) and bolting them together. Each part best of breed and 10% the price of the big names. None of them is an ERP but together they are an ERP!!

Its a thing. Wikipedia the "composable ERP" or "post modern ERP"


So whats he diff between this and the 80s and 90s of using 10 different pieces of software? Common postgre or azure MI DB, and APIs so they can talk to each other. Verses the pieces working in isolation or needing manual exports back in the day.

Pro tip: Get pieces where there is EXISTING integration between that parts, and dial all their customers up. References are key. So are demos on actual data.

ERP salesmen are worse than used car salesmen in the lies they have told me.

 

[lordnokon]

And so many people are switching from SAP to X3.