Europe's Largest Local Authority Slammed For 'Poorest' ERP Rollout Ever (theregister.com) 18
UK government-appointed commissioners have labeled Birmingham City Council's Oracle Fusion rollout as "the poorest ERP deployment" they have seen. From a report: A report published by the UK council's Corporate Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee found that 18 months after Fusion went live, the largest public authority in Europe "had not tactically stabilized the system or formulated clear plans to resolve the system issues and recover the operation."
The city council's cloud-based Oracle tech replaced the SAP system that it began using in 1999, but the disastrous project encountered a string of landmark failures. The council has failed to produce auditable accounts since Oracle was implemented in 2022, costs have ballooned from around 19 million pound to a projected estimate of 131 million pound and, because the council chose not to use system audit features, it cannot tell if fraud has taken place on its multibillion-pound spending budget for an 18-month period. In September last year, the council became effectively bankrupt due to outstanding equal pay claims and the Oracle implementation.
The report from "best value commissioners" appointed by central government to investigate struggling councils said that following the Oracle implementation, "a serious lack of trust had developed between members and officers driven by the failed implementation and subsequent lack of progress to resolve the situation."
The city council's cloud-based Oracle tech replaced the SAP system that it began using in 1999, but the disastrous project encountered a string of landmark failures. The council has failed to produce auditable accounts since Oracle was implemented in 2022, costs have ballooned from around 19 million pound to a projected estimate of 131 million pound and, because the council chose not to use system audit features, it cannot tell if fraud has taken place on its multibillion-pound spending budget for an 18-month period. In September last year, the council became effectively bankrupt due to outstanding equal pay claims and the Oracle implementation.
The report from "best value commissioners" appointed by central government to investigate struggling councils said that following the Oracle implementation, "a serious lack of trust had developed between members and officers driven by the failed implementation and subsequent lack of progress to resolve the situation."
Oracle Software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I've been involved in dozens of database implementations, two of the Oracle. Both were multimillion dollar multi-year fiascos, and both were replaced within a few years (by SQL Server and Informix).
After all (Score:5, Informative)
Company - "How much will this cost us?"
Oracle - "How much money do you have?"
Re: After all (Score:2)
Company: we want a system that will send messages between employees
Oracle: okay, thatâ(TM)ll cost you £1,000,000
Company: here you go
Oracle: hereâ(TM)s your system.
Company: hang on, this doesnâ(TM)t work, none of the messages are getting through!
Oracle: ohhhhâ¦. You want to be able to *receive* the messages as well as send them? Thatâ(TM)ll cost you £100,000,000
Fusion? (Score:3)
I thought Fusion was 30 years away...
(of course it doesn't help that they don't say what an ERP is) Executive Retirement Plan maybe?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm reasonably certain (but not 100%) that it's not Erotic Role Play.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I thought Fusion was 30 years away...
(of course it doesn't help that they don't say what an ERP is) Executive Retirement Plan maybe?
Yeah - even the original article doesn't. But as soon as I saw Oracle - I thought Come on, this is how every Oracle install I ever saw went. Where I was at last, the Oracle implementation was supposed to be 2 months. It still was being worked on 5 years later.
And it is in Oracles monetary interests for it to take as long as possible.
I'm sure it exists... (Score:1)
It seems this is the SOP; "task failed successfully".
Re: (Score:2)
Since my IT career began years and years ago, I can't recall a single time I've read about Oracle ERP installation or conversion success stories which came in "on budget" or "without utterly destroying something". It seems this is the SOP; "task failed successfully".
It is designed to fail, as long as the suckers H^H^H^H^H^H^H companies keep sending money to Oracle.
Customizing ERP frequently fails (Score:4, Insightful)
From the article: The council initially customized Oracle but now plans to reimplement the software out-of-the-box, adopting standardized processes.
From what I've heard, you conform to the way the ERP does things, not vs/vs. Attempting otherwise for anything other then cursory detail is where you end up fighting hideously complicated software into oblivion.
Re: (Score:2)
Hush, let the kids play with their anti-corporate narrative.
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Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation specialist here.
From what I've heard, you conform to the way the ERP does things, not vs/vs. Attempting otherwise for anything other then cursory detail is where you end up fighting hideously complicated software into oblivion.
A good ERP implementation is about rethinking how the company does business, then remaking the business processes to work with the ERP system. Understanding how different ERP systems work is just as important when selecting a system as the final price is.
Regarding customizations, no single OOB ERP is a 100% match for any company, so things need to get added or tweaked. For example, a company may have a preference for a specific tax processor, so the nece
Re: (Score:2)
From the article: The council initially customized Oracle but now plans to reimplement the software out-of-the-box, adopting standardized processes.
From what I've heard, you conform to the way the ERP does things, not vs/vs. Attempting otherwise for anything other then cursory detail is where you end up fighting hideously complicated software into oblivion.
I work for an ERP vendor. A common thing we see if that customers often want their new ERP system to behave like whatever their previous system did, or what what some employee got used to at a previous job. This leads down the path of extensive customizations, which are often not only unnecessary, but lead to continuing problems going forward such as making upgrades far more difficult than they should be.
We always advise customers to test thoroughly with out-of-the-box functionality before concluding they n
Re: Customizing ERP frequently fails (Score:2)
The customer wants to dictate what the software theyâ(TM)re contracting you to write does? How dare they dictate the specs!!!!!
But it hasn't killed anyone yet... has it? (Score:2)
Maybe a poor rollout, but so far, it doesn't appear to have killed anyone? Unlike say, the Horizon accounting software the UK Royal Mail rolled out a couple of decades ago?
Coulda googled (Score:2)