The second question:
Typical analysis of eight major failures of informatization
Happy families are always similar; Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. What kind of sadness and helplessness are hidden behind those unfortunate information projects? The reporter group of "Exclusive Planning" column has collected a wide range of informatization failure cases for a long time, and deeply explored the crux behind them, and summarized eight types of informatization project failure, mainly focusing on software products, customers and manufacturers.
The investigation shows that the cases of software products leading to informatization failure are mainly concentrated in three aspects: first, the software products are immature, and software manufacturers are now speculating on sales; Secondly, the localization of foreign software products is not in place, Huainan is orange, Huaibei is orange; Others are basically because the products don't match, and the customers are wearing big shoes and small feet.
There are many cases of informatization failure caused by unclear customer demand. The three types of failure are the instability of customers' decision-making, the over-idealized information planning divorced from reality, and the replacement of key internal managers.
Factors from software companies are also important. The main impact comes from the weak execution ability of software enterprises, or from the management risk of software enterprises.
In order to better reflect the connotation of these eight types, we carefully selected the classic information failure cases. For various reasons, we have concealed the real names of some enterprises. Finally, we count the vulnerability and danger of various faults to alert readers. I believe these contents can give some inspiration to enterprises in information construction.
One: Stir-fry and sell now
Cause of failure
Using immature products and following the trend are the taboos of informationization.
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The melon seeds in the converter, fried chestnuts with sugar, are of course good when they are hot. But if you want to follow the fashion in the information system, you'd better take it easy. Immature products have become an important reason for the failure of domestic information projects.
"What is a mature product? As long as there are successful cases, products are mature products! " This classic view of the CEO of a large domestic software company has been praised, and the obvious logical errors are not mentioned. PDM？ We did it! PLM？ We do the same! China software enterprises, which have just started, have become universal companies overnight. Software products that have not been strictly tested can only bring tragedy to customers.
Two: Little feet wear big shoes.
Cause of failure
If the products don't match, no matter how good the system is, it can't bring successful informatization.
In many people's minds, meat processing is the work of a workshop. But like Shuanghui, it is unique in China to turn "killing pigs and selling meat" into a big industry with an annual output value of nearly 10 billion yuan.
Shuanghui Group has more than 40 subsidiaries, 7 production bases, more than 80 sales branches, hundreds of offices and more than 200 chain stores. With the continuous expansion of business, it is more and more difficult to grasp the production, sales and inventory of enterprises. In the past, orders and returns of branches and chain stores were mainly transmitted by fax and telephone, and the production plan, stocking plan and delivery plan of headquarters and distribution center were manually summarized and counted, which was a huge workload. More than 70 people have been busy in dozens of branches. If Shuanghui plans to develop to 2000 branches during the Tenth Five-Year Plan, how many people need to be counted? Moreover, the data lacks accuracy and timeliness, and it often happens that some stores have no goods to sell, and some stores have surplus goods, and they have to be pulled back to the manufacturers at night. Important data such as inventory status, expense status and accounts receivable in all parts of the country cannot be grasped in time, which leads to confusion in the management of the whole distribution channel, and the phenomena of lost goods, cross-selling goods and inconsistent accounts are quite common.
In desperation, Shuanghui Group turned to informationization for help.
1999, after bidding, Shuanghui Group signed a contract with a well-known ERP company in China. After investigation, the ERP company adopts C/S structure, sets up modem pool, and synchronizes data once or twice a day. But in fact, Shuanghui has more than 100 offices, dozens of branches and more than 200 chain stores. If every store has to install a front desk, it will take a year to complete, and it is also difficult to operate in practice. Moreover, if the system is to be upgraded, every store has to go once. In case there is something wrong with the front desk, it is unrealistic to go there for debugging.
There are some other defects in the system design. For example, it needs a computer model-Shuanghui's computers were all furnishings at that time, and the stores and databases could not really synchronize data-the leaders could not grasp the sales situation in time and could not respond quickly.
Aware of these problems, ERP company tried to make changes. However, once the revision is really started, ERP companies will be worried. Because the mode of Shuanghui is very special, they all operate in groups and account independently. There are commission sales from industrial manufacturers, commercial direct stores and wholesalers. Therefore, the system is complex, which can form modules and be upgraded at any time. More importantly, due to the limited computer knowledge of most employees, the software is also required to be simple to operate and easy to manage. That ERP company didn't know how to finish the task, so it had to leave on paper.
Shuanghui learned the lesson of the first informatization failure and started the second informatization journey. Adopt J2EE platform and B/S four-tier structure; ERP software is written in pure Java language of "code once, run everywhere", which can run on mainstream hardware environment and operating system platform to realize cross-platform application. Shuanghui Group has truly realized internal and external data sharing, collaborative commerce and industrial and commercial integration.
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Killing a chicken is useless, but the problem is not big. But in the field of information technology, if you wear a pair of big shoes, you can't walk.
Due to the neglect of information projects, the phenomenon of product mismatch in information projects occurs from time to time. Information project failures caused by product mismatch abound.
For enterprises, it is not a trivial matter to spend a lot of money to buy big information shoes, but also to hurt the bones in the implementation process. The case of Shuanghui Group may give you some inspiration. Whether it's a small foot or a giant foot, as long as you find your own size, informationization can bring enterprises to Wan Li Road.
Three: acclimatization
Huainan is orange, Huaibei is orange.
Localization is the first hurdle of foreign ERP.
In June 2002, the case of Beijing Sanlu v Lenovo, known as "the first case of ERP in China", finally came to a conclusion after a marathon trial of 15 months: the user (Beijing Sanlu Factory) "returned the goods" and the service provider paid the user 2 million yuan.
From 65438 to 0998, Beijing Sanlu Factory found that the original financial software was difficult to adapt to the management of large enterprises and needed to integrate financial, procurement and inventory data, so it decided to go to ERP. In March, Sanlu signed an ERP implementation contract with Lenovo Integration (later transferred to Digital China). In the contract, Lenovo Integration promised to complete the implementation within half a year. If the project can't be completed within the specified time, it will pay liquidated damages at 0.5 ‰. ERP software is the exclusive agent of Lenovo Integration, MOVEX of Intentia, Sweden.
One of the partners is a well-known enterprise in the cosmetics industry. In 1998,/kloc-0 had sales of over 700 million yuan and employees of over 1200. On the one hand, IT is a direct subsidiary of the leading IT industry in China. It should have been a happy "marriage", but due to the incomplete localization of Intentia software products, some forms could not be generated correctly, and then "marriage change" appeared.
Similar to the beginning of other ERP cases, Lenovo Integrated Systems Co., Ltd. was the exclusive agent of Sweden's Intentia Company at that time. In the next stage of implementation, there are several problems that are difficult to solve: First, the software products of Intentia are not fully localized, and English appears in the operation interface and forms, which makes it difficult for employees to use; Secondly, the background reports and data collection methods provided by the system do not conform to the domestic financial system and demand habits; Third, the software implementer is unfamiliar with the software, and has not implemented it according to the standard process and implementation methodology of the software manufacturer.
At that time, MOVEX had no support organization in China, and there was no strong localization R&D support team. After implementation, modification and localization, including software product provider Intentia, some technical problems have been solved, but the key localization problems such as localization and report generation can not be completely solved. In July of 200 1 year, the project failed.
The cooperation ended in discord, and both sides had to resort to law. This case involves a lot of technical problems, and the contract signing is not rigorous and standardized. In the dispute, neither party can explain the acceptance criteria of enterprise resource planning system. There is no signature of both parties in the scheme, and there is no signature of the person in charge of both parties in each business modification. These problems actually expose the lack of legal knowledge and serious lack of implementation experience of technical project managers.
Eight months after the first ERP implementation failed, Beijing Sanlu Factory started a new round of ERP selection. In May 2002, the first phase of ERP project in Beijing Sanlu Factory passed the acceptance, and the benefits brought by ERP gradually appeared.
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ERP is not a server and needs to be implemented and localized.
At that time, Italy didn't know the domestic situation, but only used an agent to complete the so-called execution task, and didn't realize or had no chance to realize many domestic problems. Whether it is the management facts of domestic enterprises or the domestic financial system, it is not clear at all, which leads to the inadaptability of good things in new places. This is the key to the failure of the project.
Until today, there are still many successful cases of Intentia in China. The cooperation between Sanlu Factory and Jiajia proves that Sanlu is an enterprise with information knowledge and ability. The reason for the failure of informatization was that the localization of products was not enough at that time.
Fourth, change the policy.
Cause of failure
Unstable customer decisions make informationization.
The project was at a loss and finally failed.
A semiconductor equipment manufacturer with an annual output value of more than $200 million. 1in March, 1995, the company purchased a set of relatively good ERP software from a software company at that time, and planned to complete the project implementation within one year and replace the company's original outdated MRP system and other management software.
To this end, the company set up a steering committee, whose members include all senior executives and main middle managers, with the executive vice president of the company in charge of the whole project, and several related implementation teams composed of IT department technicians and major business backbones of various departments of the company. On the surface, the company's ERP project has been paid enough attention: it has enough manpower and material resources and has planned enough time. It should be said that the project was easy to succeed, but by June 1995 1 1, the project was far behind the scheduled time and could not be put into use in March 1996.
The head of the IT department told the company that this situation was caused by the lack of technical strength. Because the software needs to be modified too much, the company decided to invite more technical consultants to narrow the scope of software modification and pushed back the time limit for putting it into use for three months.
At this time, the consultant of the project feels about the company in one word, which is "chaos". Everyone is busy, but they just go their separate ways. Various meetings are held almost every day, but there is nothing substantive. The consultant realized that the problem of this ERP project is not only the lack of technical strength or the difficulty of software modification, but also the changing needs of users.
The company has put forward some unrealistic requirements and plans, and the implementation methods are always vacillating. Almost every department has put forward various modification requirements for the software, which has been affirmed by the project leader. Everyone thinks that the new system should have any function they want, so the company decides to customize the software according to their own needs, but the problem is that few people consider whether their requirements are reasonable, and the ability and time urgency of their company. Later, although they were forced to reduce the scope of software modification, the impact of these unrealistic demands and plans on the project was irreversible.
The problem of the leader makes the customer's demand have no direction. Top management will only give orders in an empty way, and there is also a lack of technical backbone who can really lead ERP implementation. No one can judge what demand is really effective.
This chaotic situation lasted until August 1996. At this time, the project still has no substantial progress and is far from being put into use. At this time, the company suddenly hired a new IT department head (the former IT department head announced his retirement). Everyone is rumored that there will be a big change in this project, and the whole project team is panicking. Sure enough, in September, the company announced that the project was stopped and several middle managers in the IT department were fired.
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Sell iron with information technology today, and back out tomorrow. We should do it in one step today, and then change our mind tomorrow and try to implement it step by step. This fickle customer may not be untouchable, but whether it is a software vendor or an implementation consultant, the first job is to help customers define their own needs, and once they decide, they will never change easily. Otherwise, the consequences of customers' indecision are mutual losses, both economic losses and reputation losses, which will last for some time.
The escaped monk collapsed the temple.
Cause of failure
How do customers resist risks from software companies?
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High-tech enterprises are also high-risk enterprises, and these new companies that are at the forefront are always brave enough to try the latest capital operation methods and enterprise management methods. However, they are faced with immature products, unstable customer demand and irregular market. It is difficult to find a completely risk-free software supplier. However, for information projects, no one can do it overnight. The long-term partners here are not empty words, but real needs from the heart.
No matter for Harbin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. or IT vendors,100000 yuan is not a small sum. In the process of ERP implementation, there are many cases in which the project is shut down or stopped due to the closure or merger of software companies. The success of ERP does not depend entirely on technology. How to avoid the project risks caused by software companies, and who will be responsible? Under the tide of software enterprise merger and acquisition, who will be responsible for and continue to maintain the projects that have been implemented by the merged company?
Lost Utopia of Intransitive Verbs
Cause of failure
Too idealistic information planning can only recreate a mirage.
The earliest networking construction of Beijing Jeep began at 1985. At that time, it invested more than RMB1100,000 yuan to establish ARCnet enterprise-level network, and used it as the platform and foundation of enterprise management information system. With the rapid development of local area network technology, ARCnet network has fallen behind in transmission speed, transmission protocol, network expansion and upgrading ability.
In order to ensure that the company's network can become a reliable and stable platform for integrating MIS and CAD/CAM systems, the company completely reformed the old network at 1996. The new network is 100/ 100 MB switched fast Ethernet, AT & amp； T wiring, eight optical fibers laid from the computer center are connected to the company's main workshops and office buildings. There are more than 600 microcomputers in the factory, most of which are more than 586. Through the 64KDDN dedicated line and inter-network, point-to-point and point-to-point communication systems, the company has realized the interconnection with the international community. Dial-up Internet access can also be used to access Chrysler's remote communication system, inquire and transmit product and sales data, and establish the company's home page on the Internet, so that the company can gradually go global.
High-standard hardware investment implies the deep expectation of enterprises for informatization. Unlike the high-standard hardware facilities, the ERP construction of Beijing Jeep started from 1993, but it has never been used. The adjustment began again in 2002 and is expected to be officially implemented in March this year. From 1993 to 2003, Beijing Jeep finally tasted the ups and downs of ERP.
1993, Beijing jeep purchased BPCS software from American SSA company, which was a popular ERP software at that time. The information director of the company told the media that buying this software seemed a bit ahead of schedule at that time, and its own management foundation was not in place, so it did encounter problems. The main reason for not using it at that time was also because of some problems in internal management. The simplest but most fatal thing is that the part numbers and product structures of various departments are not uniform, which has laid a hidden danger for the emergence of information islands and the inability to work together. What role can a set of software play when many internal management factors have not been solved?
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Too idealistic information planning can only become a mirage because it is divorced from reality. Utopian information planning in one step is a common problem in many enterprises.
In 2003, Beijing Jeep took over the BPCS system of SSA, which was not successfully applied at first, but this implementation changed the strategy. Down-to-earth, focusing on the core, grasping the problem "slowly and steadily, without mercy" has become the new information style of Beijing Jeep.
Seven, Chengtou for Wang Qi
Cause of failure
The replacement of key leaders of customers will change the strategic direction of information projects.
1April 26th, 999, Ni, the general manager of Changhong, listened to the report for nearly 9 hours, and finally decided to use ERP as the first generation information management system of Changhong. As the pride of our own brand, Changhong's every move has always attracted much attention. Many large-scale market operations, such as the big price war and the buyout of color tubes, and the sensational coaching change storm, all became the talk of people after dinner, and the implementation of ERP projects became an example that IT circles talked about at that time. However, just after the first phase of Changhong ERP was officially launched on July 16, 2000, discordant voices were heard from all sides.
According to the data, Changhong was officially confirmed to implement ERP by general manager Ni on April 26th, 1999, and signed a contract with SAP in August of the same year, and officially started the project implementation on 10/October 26th. In May 2000, Ni retired to the second line and took over the post of general manager. In July of the same year, the first phase of ERP was launched on 16. April 200 1 year, retired and officially returned. The rumors listed above about Changhong's ERP failure intensified after April 5438+0, 2006.
200 1, the theme of Changhong's reform is to overcome the disease of large enterprises. The leading bodies of the group and the joint-stock company merged, and the number of secondary departments was reduced, merged and increased from 72 to 6 1 each, and the number of middle-level cadres was adjusted from 337 to 18 1 each. In the implementation of ERP, the attitude and ability of middle-level management cadres greatly affect the implementation effect. Some department leaders pay more attention to it and the implementation effect is good. Some department leaders don't know enough about ERP, so the implementation process is difficult. Everyone in the industry knows that it is unwise to implement ERP in this period of drastic changes.
Frequent replacement of middle and senior managers is the crux of Changhong's informatization failure.
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Although today's Changhong has made a lot of noise because of counterfeiting, Changhong, as an outstanding representative of China's home appliance enterprises, still has its competitiveness to be reckoned with. However, judging from the information project, Changhong is not a constant winner. In the process of informatization, the replacement of key tasks is obviously one of the main reasons. Even though the leading figures before and after Changhong took informatization as the top priority, due to the replacement of important posts, leading figures had a process of adjusting their mentality or getting familiar with the situation, and the best opportunity to promote informatization construction was delayed in vain.
Eight, half-baked missionaries
Cause of failure
If something goes wrong with the implementer,
Customers can only be covered up inside.
The leaders of Beijing North Heavy Truck Motor Co., Ltd. all envy the work style of Siemens, the partner.
In the past, Siemens staff came, and the big box was full of tools such as drawing, ruler and pen, drawing while communicating, and then taking it back for discussion. Now they only need broadband, so they can communicate with their colleagues in Siemens office by phone. If it is done well, the benefits of informatization are really not small.
However, in order to really put informatization on the agenda, the leaders of Beijing Heavy Industry are still worried about the ERP failure experience of the company eight years ago.
All along, Beizhong Company has attached great importance to new technologies. As early as 1996, Beizhong Company learned the benefits of ERP from various channels. At that time, few people in China knew about ERP, but Beizhong Company was forward-looking and determined to go to ERP. After some selection, Beizhong Company selected a foreign product called EMS Company. At that time, EMS products were implemented by company A in China. There are many successful cases of EMS products in foreign counterparts. Many international partners of Beijing Heavy Industry are EMS customers, and Beijing Heavy Industry is full of confidence in EMS products.
At that time, Company A learned that Beizhong Company was more powerful during the demand analysis. Therefore, in order to get a big order in one breath, I did not consider that I might not be able to implement the ERP of this big company, and directly suggested that Beizhong Company should have a full set of ERP products.
When it really came to implementation, Company A found that its understanding of ERP was far from enough, and it was impossible to implement the whole ERP system. Therefore, Company A suggested to Beijing Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. that only invoicing should be implemented.
At this point, Beijing Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. has no choice but to make an invoice first. However, when the actual implementation of billing, a company found that billing is not simple-only the indicators have more than 1000! So I discussed with Beizhong again and only went to purchase the list of materials. Arriving at the bill of materials, Company A found that the bill of materials was not easy. In this way, the project has been delayed for a year and a half, and finally it was dropped.
At this point, Beijing heavy industry, which is going all out, is helpless. Unexpectedly, since the careful plan was defeated by company A, whose execution ability was too weak.
Nowadays, Beizhong Company, which is full of yearning for informatization again, appears cautious before the second ERP. Ask professionals to consult first, then ask consulting companies to make suggestions, and finally start internal planning. Now the CIO of Beizhong Company is active in various informatization seminars, hoping that there will be no problems in informatization this time.
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An important skill that consulting companies teach us when training consultants is that when a client raises a topic that we don't understand, not talking and smiling is the best response. Look up the information to find out these problems after leaving the customer, and show off next time. It makes sense to put on airs like this: since customers are obsessed with advanced foreign management concepts, I will use them.
Sometimes, implementers, especially those who represent other companies' products, don't know much about the products. Moreover, implementers often only know technology, but not much about enterprise management. This has led to the failure of many informatization projects, because informatization is actually only a means to realize enterprise management.
Therefore, enterprises should also consider the level of implementers when carrying out information construction. However, it is not enough to rely solely on the level of implementers.
So, what kind of implementer is a good implementer? This requires enterprises to have bright eyes. How can I have bright eyes? The later practice of Beizhong Company is a more appropriate way: try to refer to the third viewpoint.
A real soldier
Every enterprise is taboo to talk about its own scandals, so the case of informatization failure is particularly rare in various materials. It is almost impossible to copy the successful model, but it is very important to learn from the lessons of failure.
The establishment of corporate image depends on excellent product quality and sustainable development ability. If enterprises can honestly tell the reasons and crux of their informatization failure, it will undoubtedly be beneficial to the informatization construction process of the whole country.
Everyone understands the truth, but few people really open the scar for everyone to see. These enterprises that are willing to provide information about their informatization failure to the public are worthy of respect, because they make it possible for other enterprises to avoid detours, and they have contributed to the progress of the whole society.
The third question:
In recent two or three years, ERP has been accepted by Chinese people and regarded as a shortcut to enterprise success. However, the result was unexpected. According to statistics, the success rate of implementation is only 10-20%. The reason for this is the following：
From the user's point of view, first of all, the informatization work of enterprises is not perfect. As Chen Yu, a professor at China Renmin University School of Information, summed up, many systems have done a lot of work in collecting basic information, but the efficiency and level of utilization of these resources are still very low; We need to further improve our understanding of business process reengineering. Many enterprises have not paid enough attention to the concept and importance of BPR.
Secondly, a lot of research and practice show that the success or failure of ERP application does not depend on technology, capital, internet system, application software and software implementation, but mainly depends on the subjective consciousness of the enterprise itself. This is a summary made by Jin Daren from the Design and Research Institute of the Ministry of Machinery. He believes that the subjective consciousness of the enterprise itself is manifested in: whether the enterprise can make scientific decisions to promote the application of ERP; Can you be good at combining ERP management system engineering with enterprise innovation engineering to improve the application level and management level of ERP? Whether ERP projects can be scientifically managed and correctly implemented can be quickly transformed into real productive forces.
Furthermore, there are problems in the management of the enterprise itself. The confusion of self-planning makes enterprises not know what their short-term and long-term goals are, and the arbitrariness of management and non-compliance with rules hinder enterprises from developing into standardized enterprises.
In addition to the enterprise's own reasons, manufacturers also have unshirkable responsibility for the failure of ERP implementation. Yang, general manager of Beijing Guoneng Fugang Technology Co., Ltd. has obviously realized this problem. Some manufacturers are not working hard on theory promotion, software development and service implementation, but are keen on making exaggerated advertisements, which makes enterprises lose their trust in manufacturers. The whole set of ERP in the world has high cost, long time-consuming, slow effect and many failures, which makes many enterprises afraid to introduce ERP easily. In particular, some manufacturers, starting from their own interests, impose software design ideas that do not meet the needs of enterprises on enterprises, making the majority of enterprises do nothing in front of ERP software.
From the service point of view, there is still a lack of specialized ERP service industry. Every time a software supplier sells a set of software, it will undertake the after-sales service of a customer enterprise. However, the workload of after-sales service is large, which often takes half a year or even a year. For software manufacturers, due to the heavy burden of after-sales service, the more sets sold, the heavier the burden, so that after-sales service has become an obstacle to the development of software manufacturers.
Therefore, it is necessary to establish a professional service team. As Pan Jiageng, a professor at Tsinghua University Institute of Economics and Management, said, a professional ERP software service company is not affiliated with a software development company, but neutral and only responsible for customers. It is composed of management consulting experts and software and hardware engineering technicians to help users choose, analyze or carry out secondary development.
From the perspective of consulting, consulting companies are the bridge between manufacturers and users, helping manufacturers to reduce the burden, helping users to reorganize and plan, and making useful suggestions. However, the high hourly wages charged by consulting companies often discourage business users. Most importantly, the consulting company didn't really play the role of a bridge. In particular, some multinational consulting companies have limited knowledge of the actual situation of domestic enterprises and cannot fundamentally solve the problems of enterprises.
Successful factors in the implementation of enterprise resource planning
How can we show that the enterprise has successfully implemented ERP? There are several criteria to measure its success: closely combine all the resources of the enterprise, that is, the resources involved in various parts of the business, so as to achieve the coordination of resource utilization; Through integration, improve the utilization efficiency of resources in all aspects of business, such as market forecasting and planning.
How can we reach this standard?
Liu Jian, the consulting director of SAP China, pointed out that, specifically, to ensure the successful implementation of ERP in enterprises, there must be strong support from senior management. If the top management can't clearly understand the purpose and risk of ERP implementation, it will not inject enough resources into the project, nor will it devote enough energy to participate in various major decisions of the project.
Second, the participation of enterprise business departments. With the full participation of business departments, the project team has enough authorization, which can not only greatly shorten the decision-making cycle of problems in the project, but more importantly, make the whole enterprise prepare for management change earlier.
Third, the project resources are sufficient. Most enterprises didn't fully realize the significance of ERP project at first, but only invested several people to form a project team, which made the project team face great pressure in implementation. Successful enterprises have invested huge resources in this project.
Fourth, the close cooperation and project understanding between enterprises and consultants. The responsibilities of consultants are very important, mainly to provide users with suggestions on management improvement, technical support and knowledge transfer.
Fifth, reasonable expectations and clear project objectives. For enterprises that implement large-scale ERP system for the first time, it is necessary to set reasonable goals that need to be realized in stages. Moreover, they must realize that the most fundamental achievement of implementing ERP is to integrate enterprise resources and improve the overall management level and operational efficiency of enterprises.
Sixth, internal communication should be sufficient. Smooth communication can improve the efficiency of problem handling and decision-making.
Seventh, adequate user training. Using ERP system will greatly change the existing operation mode or process of employees.
How to choose ERP products
Before choosing an ERP system, an enterprise must determine the goal it wants to achieve, and then choose a system. Faced with many domestic and foreign ERP system providers, users consider not only the most direct price and function, but also many factors worthy of serious consideration, according to Cao Li, general manager of Mapics China Co., Ltd.:
1, investment ratio. China enterprises tend to pay more attention to the investment in hardware, but relatively ignore the investment in software. Because enterprises are actually facing software systems, choosing hardware based on software is the right way, and the investment ratio of hardware and software should be basically the same, even the cost of software is higher.
2, don't ignore the maintenance cost and implementation cost. Without maintenance cost, the software system cannot maintain its strong vitality, so maintenance cost is an important link for the system to keep up with the synchronous growth of business requirements. Implementation is the key to keep the system successful, so the implementation cost must be considered in the budget of software investment.
3. The service ability of software vendors is also very important. A mature software supplier can not only provide a strong product line for enterprises, but also need to understand the needs of enterprises, and truly start from the current situation of enterprises, and can provide stable and continuous service capabilities.
4. The execution ability, localization degree and system expansion performance of software vendors are also important factors that enterprises should consider in the selection process.