The patchy record of success in deploying fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems within the fresh produce sector has been put into context by a recently released survey.

Panorama Consulting Group is a company specialising in the provision of deployment services to companies embarking on ERP projects. They carried out a comprehensive global research exercise across 1,300 organisations that had recently deployed such solutions. Their findings make interesting reading.

The first conclusion that emerged from the study is that 93 per cent took longer to implement than planned. Some 68 per cent took far longer. The average deployment timescale was 20 months.

Some 65 per cent cost much more than the original budget. The survey also measured the expenditure invested as a percentage of turnover. This ranged from a whopping

18 per cent on SAP deployments to five per cent in the case of Microsoft.

Some 69 per cent failed to realise that more than half of the forecast business benefits and 57 per cent of the respondents said that they were satisfied with the results.

The survey went on to ask more detailed questions on the experiences of the companies throughout the implementation process. The key factors that emerged from these experiences included a lack of employee commitment to the project, expenditure restrictions and a lack of appropriate process management skills within the company. Their conclusions were to select the solution carefully, implement effectively, don’t cut corners and (hardly surprisingly), engage outside expertise to facilitate the transition.

The fresh produce industry has always faced particular challenges in the deployment of ERP systems. This is due to the velocity of perishable low-cost products through the supply chain. The challenge of capturing all of the required detailed data in such a fast-changing environment is considerable. In traditional production industries, the norm is that people have more time, as the time lag between ordering and delivery is usually days and weeks, rather than hours. Furthermore, the products produced have longer shelf lives, which provides the manufacturers with more breathing space.

However, the survey highlights the reason for the change currently taking place within the ERP marketplace. According to the current statistics, 80 per cent of ERP systems deployed are based on configuring or developing the standard out of the box functionality to meet the specific needs of the client. This can be a long, tortuous and expensive iterative process, as in an integrated system, changes to one part of the system can have unexpected consequences in another.

It is for these reasons that the industry pundits are predicting a rapid move towards packaged solutions where industry functionality is already built into the ERP system. Indeed, the predictions are that the future trend will mean that within five years, 80 per cent of ERP solutions deployed will consist of applications specifically designed for vertical industries. Having functionality that encompasses best practice for the industry within the packaged application is a significant advantage. It accelerates the deployment, de-risks the project, reduces the cost of ownership and facilitates the incorporation of future developments and upgrades.

Using this approach, it has been possible to deploy end-to-end fresh produce solutions in less than a third of the time highlighted in the featured survey, and within a significantly lower cost as a percentage of turnover.

The rest of the ERP world is rapidly becoming aware of the commercial potential of industry-specific packaged software. In the meantime, the fresh produce industry is already taking advantage of the trend.