that happens a lot with enterprise software, too much customization and you end up painting yourself in a corner or run into roadblock after roadblock of platform gotchas. I do SF implementations these days and have seen it go great and have seen it turn into a total nightmare.

however, not once have I ever heard of an SAP implementation going well. It's a massive undertaking and takes total commitment from so many different people and roles in an enterprise. You need genius PMs and BAs along with a genius client team before you even talk about the actual technical people.

>>not once have I ever heard of an SAP implementation going well.

Sometimes it depends who you ask; I found that hands-on people on the ground and SMEs tend to be very negative about it, for personally valid reasons - it's a lot of work, it doesn't go smoothly, and it disrupts and changes what and how they do it.

However, there are quite a few ERP implementations where the top-level stakeholders feel the results are worthwhile the disruption and pain, and from that perspective it "went well" - the business objectives were overall met, whether it be capabilities or speed or reporting or integration/centralization or headcount or complexity reduction, all of it ultimately boiling to money at some level...

Now you're describing an implementation that is disruptive to the majority of employees "on the ground" and only worthwhile to the top-level stakeholders.

Only the top-level stakeholders felt the results were worthwhile the disruption and pain -- that they did not suffer.

But have you ever heard of one going well ?

As in, not just worthwhile to a tiny minority of the people on the top?

Yeah I bet it makes stuff more efficient, but clearly there's a disparity between the people suffering "disruptions and pain" and the ones who ultimately feel it has been worthwhile.

Another way to look at it is, the top-level stakeholders are responsible for the business and not just themselves or the lives of their employees. An effective leader is thinking about what is best for the business. Not just themselves or any one part of the business.

And maybe, just maybe, what is right for the business is bad for the majority of the staff. At least in the short term. I know that is a bitter pill to swallow, but it is reality.

> And maybe, just maybe, what is right for the business is bad for the majority of the staff. At least in the short term. I know that is a bitter pill to swallow, but it is reality.

Perhaps an example more palatable on HN would be Uber replacing all its drivers with software. Clearly better for the business.

The process often derails at exactly the “implement it as vanilla as possible” stage. Usually because someone doesn’t want to change what they do and someone else doesn’t care enough to make them change.