Post Implementation Agility
"Total Cost of Change – A Superior Alternative to TCO.”Brian Sommer, TechVentive, Inc.
Agresso is unique in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) industry for its primary strength, post-implementation agility, or the ability to make changes to the ERP system after it has been implemented.
Almost all major ERP vendors offer limitless flexibility PRIOR to implementation. But once their systems are in place, customers are locked into the system configuration that reflects their requirements at the moment of go live.
Any significant change to the configuration typically requires expensive IT or external consultant resources.
A survey completed by CFO Research Services shows that a typical company may spend an average of more than $1.2 million each year to maintain, modify, and update its ERP system.
80% of the executives surveyed report that they have customised their ERP systems either moderately or extensively to adapt the product to their organisation's unique business requirements.
For dynamic organisations facing frequent change, that Agresso refers to as Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC)™, the punishing costs of keeping their ERP systems in line with their business can often outpace licensing and maintenance fees.
A Better, Unique Alternative
In contrast, Agresso's post-implementation agility allows organisations to respond to change quickly and cost-efficiently. Business users themselves can make the changes they need right from the graphical user interface (GUI). The costs and risks associated with changing an ERP implementation are drastically reduced when the person doing it understands the business need and is authorised to make the change.
Change Is Inevitable – Are You Prepared?
An Agresso customer survey identified the major drivers of change within their organisations.
- 60% experienced significant change
- More than 80% anticipated significant change in the future.
The changes originated from various sources and for most other ERP systems, these changes would represent major system re-work and significant costs. With Agresso, more than 80% of Agresso customers were able to address these changes internally, without expensive external consultants:
Source: Unit4 Agresso BLINC survey among 120 customers at Agresso User Group - Dublin
Avoid Costly Consultants and Constrained IT Resources
Consider this excerpt from the Technology Evaluation Centers' Market Comparison Report analysing how the leading ERP vendors address change. This table shows the kinds of changes that can be made easily from a user’s desktop (GUI), and which require IT or consultants to make expensive programming changes at the application level (APP).
| Reorganisation and Restructuring | Agresso | Oracle | SAP |
Makes changes to move a cost center into a different division | GUI | APP | APP |
Ability to make changes to new organisational processes and integrate them with different software systems | APP | APP | APP |
Makes changes to existing methods of segmenting products or organisational structure (e.g., from product to regional or both) | GUI | APP | APP |
Changes management by office to management by job type | GUI | APP | APP |
Makes changes to financial organisation system so history of existing structure and planned structural changes can be compared | GUI | APP | APP |
Makes changes when departments are divided, including structural changes, responsibilities, and processes | GUI | APP | APP |
Makes changes when parallel functions of an acquired company are integrated into a unified technological platform | GUI | APP | APP |
Superior Agility Enables Superior Strategy
Agresso customers do not need to put off good business decisions because their ERP system can’t adjust.
Our customers, including Higher Education and Service Organisations, run their organisations the way they need to and Agresso facilitates rather than hampers their decisions. This is not always the case with other more rigid ERP systems.
CFO Research’s 2009 report “The High Cost Of Change for ERP” surveyed 157 finance executive across the US on ongoing ERP ownership costs. One executive admitted:
“we will not make custom modifications to the software; we will modify the business process if necessary or create an offline procedure”
With Agresso’s post-implementation agility, organisations are free to maneuver and make the best business decisions without fear of disruption or run-away costs.
