Europe’s biggest city council faces £100M bill in Oracle ERP project disaster(theregister.com)
theregister.com
Europe’s biggest city council faces £100M bill in Oracle ERP project disaster
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/25/europes_biggest_council_faces_100m_erp_bill/
96 comments
> Councils are I think too small to access GDS?
Councils probably don't want to access GDS. Why lose all those sweet vendor kickbacks? Free ticket to this, free travel to that...
There is a lot of corruption in Britain at the lower level of government. It's all in plain sight, it's all legal, and because it benefits the same networks (someone would say "classes") that are structurally in power in Westminster, nothing gets done about it.
Councils probably don't want to access GDS. Why lose all those sweet vendor kickbacks? Free ticket to this, free travel to that...
There is a lot of corruption in Britain at the lower level of government. It's all in plain sight, it's all legal, and because it benefits the same networks (someone would say "classes") that are structurally in power in Westminster, nothing gets done about it.
Could you say a bit more about how those running the councils benefit from these contracts? I don’t think I fully understood what you were saying about kickbacks.
Say you are an ERP vendor who really wants to get a contract with the (imaginary) Penzance Metropolitan Borough. What do you do? You identify the key decision makers and start wining and dining them. Since scrutiny at local level has largely disappeared (thanks to the demise of local press), nobody will notice.
Maybe you don't even need to do that, maybe you already knew them from school, so it was a given that they'd call you as soon as they got in a position to bring you in - and you'll be so grateful, you'll probably let you stay at your cottage in France for free, any time they want.
Etc etc etc.
This is stuff that in other countries would be called organised crime, mafia, defrauding the state, and so on. In Britain it's just how the ruling classes go about business.
Maybe you don't even need to do that, maybe you already knew them from school, so it was a given that they'd call you as soon as they got in a position to bring you in - and you'll be so grateful, you'll probably let you stay at your cottage in France for free, any time they want.
Etc etc etc.
This is stuff that in other countries would be called organised crime, mafia, defrauding the state, and so on. In Britain it's just how the ruling classes go about business.
Birmingham council is run by Labour but Westminster is run by the Conservatives. Unless by classes you mean all politicians, it's not the case that it's all linked back to central government.
Besides, corruption isn't needed to explain this. ERP projects fail all the time, with SAP as well.
Besides, corruption isn't needed to explain this. ERP projects fail all the time, with SAP as well.
They're all the politician class. Labour don't represent the lower classes any better than the tories imo.
Doesn't really make sense to say that politicians are structurally in power in Westminster though. I mean, yeah, kind of by definition in a democracy the political classes are structurally in power.
Not in the way that we have in the UK - where most representatives (regardless of party) have gone through the same schools and the same social circles (bit of journalism, bit of finance, all largely in London or surrounding areas).
I know so little about British politics that I take Yes, (Prime) Minister at face value. I would have thought it war more about the (benefits and) interests of bureaucracy and civil service.
Labours today are literally red tories
Reminds me of the University of Edinburgh this year with their own Oracle disaster, seems like it was largely on time and budget, it just didn't work: https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/23/edinburgh_university_...
It was on time, because they forced it on us before it could actually work.
Regarding on budget that's not really true anymore as:
"The institution has confirmed implementation partner Inoapps and software company Oracle will see the price of their contract rise from £25.4 million ($31.1 million) to £33.5 million ($41.12 million), owing to changes in requirements and additional work orders by the customer"
But it's been a big debacle.
> This happens a lot. Another way of looking at it is that this is a successful outcome for Oracle, because they've hugely increased their billable hours.
Honestly, it's not that surprising.
Government salaries aren't competitive with the private sector, and especially not with FAANG. Same government workers are now tasked with identifying requirements and managing consultants. But are they even qualified to do that?
Honestly, it's not that surprising.
Government salaries aren't competitive with the private sector, and especially not with FAANG. Same government workers are now tasked with identifying requirements and managing consultants. But are they even qualified to do that?
> Same government workers are now tasked with identifying requirements and managing consultants
I've been in the private sector for the last 10 years and most of the folks I worked with sure aren't.
I've been in the private sector for the last 10 years and most of the folks I worked with sure aren't.
The private sector has the advantage that companies which don’t have competent enough people will simply fail and cease to exist.
Birmingham cannot cease to exist, however, so failures need to be recovered from.
Birmingham cannot cease to exist, however, so failures need to be recovered from.
Overpromise, underdeliver, and overcharge. It's the Oracle Way.
In my experience, Oracle only ever built one product that was good, and you can replace it with PostgreSQL for significantly less money and gain greater flexibility to boot.
I think the source of Oracle's execution woes lies in part with their Fusion Middleware. It's garbage. Even though JEE has become somewhat outdated, it's still viable. That isn't the issue. The problem is the horrible memory management, continually stuck threads, and their poor messaging implementation. It makes solutions built on the platform prone to constant failure and requiring lots and lots of hardware - which of course increases licensing costs back to Oracle.
I've given up trying to figure out why people keep buying their stuff.
In my experience, Oracle only ever built one product that was good, and you can replace it with PostgreSQL for significantly less money and gain greater flexibility to boot.
I think the source of Oracle's execution woes lies in part with their Fusion Middleware. It's garbage. Even though JEE has become somewhat outdated, it's still viable. That isn't the issue. The problem is the horrible memory management, continually stuck threads, and their poor messaging implementation. It makes solutions built on the platform prone to constant failure and requiring lots and lots of hardware - which of course increases licensing costs back to Oracle.
I've given up trying to figure out why people keep buying their stuff.
EY was the implementation partner, Oracle the vendor. The article doesn't make that clear, but a linked one does. PWC and KPMG were brought in to try and fix after EY failed at additional cost. All three are known for putting brain or three and a bunch of new hires at top rates on projects. Oracle is a red herring here.
Oracle is not a red herring. These are just Oracle's "implementation partners." They're all in on the take.
Not surprised.
Enterprise software is always *enter-pricey*.
Lots of $$$ poured into consultants and very little to the folks who actually do the work and implementation.
And of course, a project (or program in corporate speak) of this magnitude will have a lot of meetings involving a lot of people that usually ends up in very meaningless decisions.
Enterprise software is always *enter-pricey*.
Lots of $$$ poured into consultants and very little to the folks who actually do the work and implementation.
And of course, a project (or program in corporate speak) of this magnitude will have a lot of meetings involving a lot of people that usually ends up in very meaningless decisions.
Implementation partner was EY (Ernst & Young). Taking a heavily customized SAP into anything else is going to be painful, and the wrong partner for implementation can really cost.
In my experience, with these types of project, 20% of the error is on useless partners, 80% on useless clients, who have no knowledge of how their current system works, are not willing to compromise on any existing features (because it's always easier to say "no" than to try and convince others to say "yes"), and don't really care about the migration one way or the other, because they weren't really asked in the first place
If Apple had been in the B2B enterprise space, the iphone would be an exact clone of the blackberry
If Apple had been in the B2B enterprise space, the iphone would be an exact clone of the blackberry
“ 80% on useless clients, who have no knowledge of how their current system works,”
I tend to think that’s true. I have been involved in some process improvements at my company and it was almost always that:
* Nobody really knows how things are working now
* A lot of people don’t want to adapt to new processes
* Execs give you a lot of verbal commitment but don’t do anything to really help
It’s really hard to implement a good software system within these constraints.
I tend to think that’s true. I have been involved in some process improvements at my company and it was almost always that:
* Nobody really knows how things are working now
* A lot of people don’t want to adapt to new processes
* Execs give you a lot of verbal commitment but don’t do anything to really help
It’s really hard to implement a good software system within these constraints.
I wasn’t aware of how true this is until I got to see larger companies up close.
People are incredibly siloed and very incentivized to make the issue someone else’s problem - if you have a vendor you can shift the problem onto, even better.
People are incredibly siloed and very incentivized to make the issue someone else’s problem - if you have a vendor you can shift the problem onto, even better.
"The UK's biggest city council faces £100M bill in Oracle ERP project disaster". There's really no need to rope in the whole continent for a specific thing in a specific country. The fact that they're the biggest local authority by population in Europe is really not relevant to anything that's happening here.
I don't understand how they are "biggest local authority by population in Europe". Surely Istanbul is larger.
It's a bit of a weird semi-pedantic stats claim, they're basically counting "largest lowest level of government". Birmingham is a large unitary authority, there are no district or borough councils below it. Looking at Wikipedia Istanbul seems to be split into districts which have their own local governments (similar to London with its boroughs). So they're counting the 514,900 population of Başakşehir or 259,146 of Hackney vs the 1.1 million of Birmingham, rather than the total populations of Istanbul or Greater London.
Is Istanbul a single unitary local authority or done by boroughs/arrondisements?
Istanbul has an elected mayor and a local parlament. The current mayor is Ekrem İmamoğlu.
Big cities in Turkey have a single metropolitan municipality each. Below the metropolitan municipality each district also has its own local mayor and local parlament. They have a duty sharing system.
For example water and public transportation is responsibilty of the metropolitan municipality. Collecting property taxes is responsibility of the smaller local municipalities etc.
Big cities in Turkey have a single metropolitan municipality each. Below the metropolitan municipality each district also has its own local mayor and local parlament. They have a duty sharing system.
For example water and public transportation is responsibilty of the metropolitan municipality. Collecting property taxes is responsibility of the smaller local municipalities etc.
Europe is a state of mind.
No one living here considers Turkey to be part of Europe
I need to disagree. As a (central) European person I very much consider at least Istanbul to be an European city - not sure about the whole of Turkey, though.
After some thoughts why I feel this way I think it boils down to geography and history. Istanbul is geographically on both sides of the bosphorus strait, where the “continents” Europe and Asia are considered divided. And then it has historical significance for Europe (as Constantinople), being one of the major stable forces in Europe during at least the middle ages (but also before and after).
Yeah, they dont. Contradictorily so, since the part of the Turkey that is geographically in Europe is larger than many European states both in respect to surface area and also in respect to population.
Istanbul is partly in Europe?
Well I suppose it's relevant in two ways:
1) this is a huge bill, but it is relevant that it is a bill for a large city council (as opposed to a village facing the same bill)
2) they are big enough they should not really be considered as too small to afford good counsel on how to do this sort of project properly
1) this is a huge bill, but it is relevant that it is a bill for a large city council (as opposed to a village facing the same bill)
2) they are big enough they should not really be considered as too small to afford good counsel on how to do this sort of project properly
The term for ginormous software packages like SAP and Oracle ERP is HostageWare:
Some people inside these customer organizations are fanatically committed to it, since what choice do they have? A disaster like this?
Some people inside these customer organizations are fanatically committed to it, since what choice do they have? A disaster like this?
Another one six months ago: University of Edinburgh orders investigation into Oracle finance disaster
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33739657
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33739657
It seems to me that most city councils will operate similar services and therefore have similar needs from their software. Therefore it doesn't make sense for each council to buy and customize their own system. Even better, they could co-fund an open source tool that can be used by all. I realize it's a simplistic view but it seems like there is a lot of money to be saved.
Leaving Sap was a good idea, but i'm pretty sure replacing Sap by oracle ERP wasn't. Especially, it seems it's one to one in functionalities?
The better idea is to take a more modular ERP imho, and slowly transition.
The better idea is to take a more modular ERP imho, and slowly transition.
> The better idea is to take a more modular ERP imho, and slowly transition.
...or just imagine what £100M in bounties to open source developers could accomplish. It would probably get their requirements met and, as a side-effect, contribute billions to the world economy by liberating many others from lock-in, besides just Birmingham City Council. As it stands, all they seem to have accomplished with this ludicrous amount of money is getting rid of one evil by inviting another.
...or just imagine what £100M in bounties to open source developers could accomplish. It would probably get their requirements met and, as a side-effect, contribute billions to the world economy by liberating many others from lock-in, besides just Birmingham City Council. As it stands, all they seem to have accomplished with this ludicrous amount of money is getting rid of one evil by inviting another.
Open-source only helps organizations that take ownership of their own design and decision-making.
Contracting disasters are always because the customer is trying to outsource thinking. Usually it ends poorly. Either way, you don't solve the problem with a configurable OSS tool.
Contracting disasters are always because the customer is trying to outsource thinking. Usually it ends poorly. Either way, you don't solve the problem with a configurable OSS tool.
Even just normal competent salaried employees would've been an improvement.
With that amount you could've reasonably employed a 50 person department with roughly 100k cost of employment for 20 years.
With that amount you could've reasonably employed a 50 person department with roughly 100k cost of employment for 20 years.
> Leaving Sap was a good idea
From the article: "Standard SAP is the same, but BCC customized SAP to get it working really well and apart from some minor annoyances, SAP was a good product that should never have been ditched," the insider said.
From the article: "Standard SAP is the same, but BCC customized SAP to get it working really well and apart from some minor annoyances, SAP was a good product that should never have been ditched," the insider said.
I've worked with SAP in two companies: for the end user, it's slow, ugly, hard to use, and full of idiosyncrasy.
I've used two open source ERP, both as end users and as maintainer (granted, in smaller companies). Both were objectively better. Props to ERP5 and the composition it allows by the way, especially for the web pages that are easy to modify without prior knowledge (controllers and the database especially are a pain to work with however, but unless you want to create a new module yourself, you won't need it).
I've used two open source ERP, both as end users and as maintainer (granted, in smaller companies). Both were objectively better. Props to ERP5 and the composition it allows by the way, especially for the web pages that are easy to modify without prior knowledge (controllers and the database especially are a pain to work with however, but unless you want to create a new module yourself, you won't need it).
I do not want to belittle your personal experience, but two companies make no convincing picture, IMHO. I am working daily as a developer with ERP systems. Once you get used to the idiosyncrasy they are usually no longer slow or hard to use (unless the implementation partner has really messed up - which happens).
Open source ERP can neither cover the functional range of main ERP systems like Oracle's or SAP's, nor can you expect the same level of domain knowledge being applied to it in development (with a small fraction of the developers the large ones have, lacking the specialization at the large vendors), nor do at least I know of success stories in that regard with Fortune 500 companies, as their main, driving ERP system.
Open source ERP can neither cover the functional range of main ERP systems like Oracle's or SAP's, nor can you expect the same level of domain knowledge being applied to it in development (with a small fraction of the developers the large ones have, lacking the specialization at the large vendors), nor do at least I know of success stories in that regard with Fortune 500 companies, as their main, driving ERP system.
It does sound like a very "out of the frying pan" decision.
If it's not a fail with Oracle, it's SAP or dynamics or some other "ERP". Do these implementations ever work, and why do these big organisations keep going for them?surely they've seen the string of failures preceding them? I suspect it's ego, and the need to pad CVs that does it. And the unwillingness of the people who should know better to say no.
SAP S4/HANA was insanely expensive but generally worked, and on time.
Finding consultants who could help was like pulling teeth, though. The offshored Indian ones were terrible, and the European ones often didn't speak English well enough. Mexico City was had good offshoring options but couldn't supply enough bodies.
Never had a strictly Oracle project go well though. Exadata is a dirty word in these parts. Only thing that was more of a PITA was Azure...
Finding consultants who could help was like pulling teeth, though. The offshored Indian ones were terrible, and the European ones often didn't speak English well enough. Mexico City was had good offshoring options but couldn't supply enough bodies.
Never had a strictly Oracle project go well though. Exadata is a dirty word in these parts. Only thing that was more of a PITA was Azure...
Yes, they do work and sometimes pretty good. It mostly depends on the implementation team. SAP which is the one I know, has plenty of defects but also a lot of virtues. A good implementation and customizing team can make it run properly.
Most implementations do "work" to the extent that they are better than nothing. I mean what's the alternative? Running business processes on paper is no longer a practical option. And most enterprises lack the scale and competence that would be needed to build their own custom ERP in a cost effective way.
They "work" just fine for Oracle, SAP, etc.
Does anyone know why they decided to leave SAP?
Does ERP really need customisation? That seems to be a big cost driver as well as causing lock-in.
I think that's the right question that gets at the heart of the ERP mess, but it doens't have a great answer.
In theory, you should be able to have your software support the workflow that works for your specific organization, business, and context. Rather than having to change your workflow to what the machine demands as universal. The latter seems really inhumane.
In practice, it never seems to work out very well. Does _anyone_ like their ERP and it's implementation?
These products are designed around being customizable -- if they gave that up, they'd be much simpler products, which means they'd probably work a lot better (for what they are designed for, which may not be what you need, which is the problem), and be a lot cheaper (which is not necessarily in the interests of the companies that sell them -- the complexity is fine with them, as long as they can keep charging for it, including with their consultants).
It almost makes me wish yo ucould do things without software at all -- but that's a disaster too, this isn't 1970 and pretending it is doesn't work.
There's really no way out. We've built a society where you can't do this without software but the software that would be _good_ takes more skill and resources than society can possibly afford.
In theory, you should be able to have your software support the workflow that works for your specific organization, business, and context. Rather than having to change your workflow to what the machine demands as universal. The latter seems really inhumane.
In practice, it never seems to work out very well. Does _anyone_ like their ERP and it's implementation?
These products are designed around being customizable -- if they gave that up, they'd be much simpler products, which means they'd probably work a lot better (for what they are designed for, which may not be what you need, which is the problem), and be a lot cheaper (which is not necessarily in the interests of the companies that sell them -- the complexity is fine with them, as long as they can keep charging for it, including with their consultants).
It almost makes me wish yo ucould do things without software at all -- but that's a disaster too, this isn't 1970 and pretending it is doesn't work.
There's really no way out. We've built a society where you can't do this without software but the software that would be _good_ takes more skill and resources than society can possibly afford.
The alternative is to build purpose built software, but that would require this municipality to pay SWEs (among other folks) directly. An interesting case study would be if it were actually cheaper in the end to just employ some software engineers and write something catered to themselves.
Yeah, I don't think it would be any cheaper, or any likely to meet success. Succesful software development is hard, whether you hire a consultancy or are a non-software company trying to create an in-house department.
Software around workflow (an ERP) is one of the most challenging areas. Because it is hard to shoe-horn it into a universal pattern, or figure out what a given organization actually needs (not always what they say they need).
To do it in-house succesfully requires a level of healthy functioning in the organization as a whole (to be able to figure out and decide functional requirements, to prioritize, to give engineering the environment where they can be succesful, etc) that few organizations have.
And with current software engineer salaries (and UX designer, product manager, etc), even if all your cards are in order for success (very rare), few could afford it. It am confident it would not be cheaper than the big ERPs; you'd hope it would at least reliably end up better/less bad than the big ERPs for the cost, but I'm not confident of that either.
Software around workflow (an ERP) is one of the most challenging areas. Because it is hard to shoe-horn it into a universal pattern, or figure out what a given organization actually needs (not always what they say they need).
To do it in-house succesfully requires a level of healthy functioning in the organization as a whole (to be able to figure out and decide functional requirements, to prioritize, to give engineering the environment where they can be succesful, etc) that few organizations have.
And with current software engineer salaries (and UX designer, product manager, etc), even if all your cards are in order for success (very rare), few could afford it. It am confident it would not be cheaper than the big ERPs; you'd hope it would at least reliably end up better/less bad than the big ERPs for the cost, but I'm not confident of that either.
The problem is if you knew enough about your business logic to plan out an ERP system beforehand, you wouldn't need an ERP system to begin with. The main benefit of either buying or building an ERP system is that it forces you to actually find out (or decide) what the flow of information in your organization is. It's a management consulting process that happens to play out in software.
> To do it in-house succesfully requires a level of healthy functioning [...] that few organizations have
I think it actually requires the organization to morph into being a tech company first. In order to have good software to run a City Council, it effectively requires the Council to become "a software-making organization that delivers council services". In order to have good software to run a bank, it requires the bank to become "a software-making organization that delivers banking services".
Unfortunately, it's both politically difficult (nobody goes into any type of non-IT activity because they want to work with software) and really challenging: not even IT organizations have figured out the best way to address problems like technical debt, language churn, documentation etc, and non-IT organizations face them just as much.
I think it actually requires the organization to morph into being a tech company first. In order to have good software to run a City Council, it effectively requires the Council to become "a software-making organization that delivers council services". In order to have good software to run a bank, it requires the bank to become "a software-making organization that delivers banking services".
Unfortunately, it's both politically difficult (nobody goes into any type of non-IT activity because they want to work with software) and really challenging: not even IT organizations have figured out the best way to address problems like technical debt, language churn, documentation etc, and non-IT organizations face them just as much.
I mean, not only is it politically difficult, it's probably not appropriate for a City Government to organize itself primarily as a "software organization" -- that's not actually it's mission.
I don't actually want my city government to be a "software-making organization that delivers government services".
Every organization needs an ERP (maybe?), but not every organization that needs an ERP is or should be a software organization. Saying that in order to get a good ERP every organization has to transform itself into a software-centered organization... seems a bit much.
I don't actually want my city government to be a "software-making organization that delivers government services".
Every organization needs an ERP (maybe?), but not every organization that needs an ERP is or should be a software organization. Saying that in order to get a good ERP every organization has to transform itself into a software-centered organization... seems a bit much.
> that's not actually it's mission.
Its mission is to deliver council services, but if the best way to do that is through efficient IT (and in this day and age that's pretty undoubtedly the case, since most communications are pushed via websites, payments are made via automated systems, etc etc), then the organization should definitely pack the necessary skills and organizational tools to achieve efficient IT first and foremost.
> I don't actually want my city government to be a "software-making organization that delivers government services".
Let me understand this.
You want your city government to overcharge you on Council Tax because they didn't see the form you filed two months ago about being a single occupant.
You want your city government to miss your bin because they actually performed the collection one day earlier than usual and didn't alert you in some way.
You want your city government to be at the mercy of unfaithful civil servants who abscond with money by applying dodgy accounting.
You want your city government to dig themselves into massive financial holes because their planning and forecasting software is subpar.
You want your city government to be unable to analize expenses and contracts to identify where they're getting gouged.
You want your city government to ignore complaints about this or that item, since they can conveniently forget to file them when people call.
These (and more) are not hypotheticals - this is what goes on in many (most?) local authorities, today like yesterday, and it's all stuff that can be fixed with software by organizations with the right skills and attitudes; but they require putting software (and people who know how to make software) at the heart of "how we go about doing things".
Its mission is to deliver council services, but if the best way to do that is through efficient IT (and in this day and age that's pretty undoubtedly the case, since most communications are pushed via websites, payments are made via automated systems, etc etc), then the organization should definitely pack the necessary skills and organizational tools to achieve efficient IT first and foremost.
> I don't actually want my city government to be a "software-making organization that delivers government services".
Let me understand this.
You want your city government to overcharge you on Council Tax because they didn't see the form you filed two months ago about being a single occupant.
You want your city government to miss your bin because they actually performed the collection one day earlier than usual and didn't alert you in some way.
You want your city government to be at the mercy of unfaithful civil servants who abscond with money by applying dodgy accounting.
You want your city government to dig themselves into massive financial holes because their planning and forecasting software is subpar.
You want your city government to be unable to analize expenses and contracts to identify where they're getting gouged.
You want your city government to ignore complaints about this or that item, since they can conveniently forget to file them when people call.
These (and more) are not hypotheticals - this is what goes on in many (most?) local authorities, today like yesterday, and it's all stuff that can be fixed with software by organizations with the right skills and attitudes; but they require putting software (and people who know how to make software) at the heart of "how we go about doing things".
I don't live in a country where it's called a "Council" and operates like a UK local Council, so my units of city government and their roles/functions might not be the same, and that may be a misconnect in this conversation.
But services provided by IT are only one part of what I expect my local municipal government to be able to do competently, and not necessarily the great part. While I would like the services provided by IT to be done competently (ideally beyond competently), it does not necessarily follow that they should be focused on to the exclusion or de-prioritization of things that are not IT, which it seems to me would be the consequence of the local municipal government reorganizing itself and considering itself as fundamentally and mainly a software engineering organization (or an IT organization in general, which is not necessarily the same thing either).
But services provided by IT are only one part of what I expect my local municipal government to be able to do competently, and not necessarily the great part. While I would like the services provided by IT to be done competently (ideally beyond competently), it does not necessarily follow that they should be focused on to the exclusion or de-prioritization of things that are not IT, which it seems to me would be the consequence of the local municipal government reorganizing itself and considering itself as fundamentally and mainly a software engineering organization (or an IT organization in general, which is not necessarily the same thing either).
And over time that custom software would inevitably expand to be as large and complex as Oracle ERP, but lower quality. As bad as some vendors are, organizations that lack a core competency in software development are even worse.
Given that Oracle ERP licences start at 100k per year for small-to-medium companies, NOT including hardware or let's say 2 years of consultancy to get it installed in the first place.
Big enterprises pay a lot more and will have to maintain all sorts of operations folks anyway, so I'm pretty sure you could have a team of, say, 5 SWEs for less than and ERP system. Especially for less than Oracle.
Also there are at this point plenty of open source ERPs you could start from.
Big enterprises pay a lot more and will have to maintain all sorts of operations folks anyway, so I'm pretty sure you could have a team of, say, 5 SWEs for less than and ERP system. Especially for less than Oracle.
Also there are at this point plenty of open source ERPs you could start from.
Come on. Paying SWE salaries is only a tiny fraction of the cost of building, implementing, and maintaining a custom ERP application. The complete lifecycle costs are enormous even if you use an open source product as a starting point.
And yet ... every ERP installation I've EVER seen is a custom ERP application, with maybe a standard "big" database at the center (not in the case of Odoo, or MS Dynamics that use standard non-ERP databases, or at least databases that don't usually work in ERP systems, so ERP without a big database in the middle exists). These were developed by teams of consultants and maintained by multiple teams of sysadmins, SWEs, DB admins, ...
The supposed extra features are usually 20-year-old disasters. For example, one thing they all have and are very proud of is a standard UI system. That means the "same form" works on Windows, on the web, on phones (these days), with a centralized auth provider, ...
Except to say that ABAP GUI sucks is like saying first hammering a spike into your own skull and then having it pulled back out by a bull is a suboptimal experience. The question that joke screams "why would you do it like that" is one you'll be asking a lot when using these ERP systems. In case there's any doubt: their UI most definitely does not really work on mobile without extensive changes ... also known as "development". And yes it's been improved and is better. Which is to say at one point I believe Oracle had a "mobile UI" which was an android "RDP client" (sending screens pixel by pixel) connecting to a windows server which ran the windows binary of their UI. Even required per-user windows licences. I don't know how they did it, but it actually had windows 3.1 style scrollbars on the phone display. These are improvements in the sense that HIV is a big experience improvement over gonnorhea.
And you might think "surely that means the form is going to be very responsive !".
Heh.
These installations require DB admins, require SWEs, require managers, oncall, ..., require colocation/dedicated/cloud costs (may God help you if you're paying cloud prices for your DB, and whilst I agree admin is easier it's not so much easier that you don't need a DB team). Oh and I've never seen a SAP ABAP installation go 6 months without a consultant getting hired to solve some issue the company couldn't solve.
Just about the only really unique thing about ERP software is that the code for the "applications" lives in the database itself (MS access, or Dbase used to do that too). This is also just about the worst thing about them, as it means you don't get integration testing, or standard version control, or files, or ...
Yes, I know, somehow Oracle has convinced every MBA to do this rather than pay 5 SWEs to just make them PHP apps. And no, I don't mean those PHP apps will be worse, they'll be way better. It's standard so you can get consultants to attempt to fix the worst disasters.
The supposed extra features are usually 20-year-old disasters. For example, one thing they all have and are very proud of is a standard UI system. That means the "same form" works on Windows, on the web, on phones (these days), with a centralized auth provider, ...
Except to say that ABAP GUI sucks is like saying first hammering a spike into your own skull and then having it pulled back out by a bull is a suboptimal experience. The question that joke screams "why would you do it like that" is one you'll be asking a lot when using these ERP systems. In case there's any doubt: their UI most definitely does not really work on mobile without extensive changes ... also known as "development". And yes it's been improved and is better. Which is to say at one point I believe Oracle had a "mobile UI" which was an android "RDP client" (sending screens pixel by pixel) connecting to a windows server which ran the windows binary of their UI. Even required per-user windows licences. I don't know how they did it, but it actually had windows 3.1 style scrollbars on the phone display. These are improvements in the sense that HIV is a big experience improvement over gonnorhea.
And you might think "surely that means the form is going to be very responsive !".
Heh.
These installations require DB admins, require SWEs, require managers, oncall, ..., require colocation/dedicated/cloud costs (may God help you if you're paying cloud prices for your DB, and whilst I agree admin is easier it's not so much easier that you don't need a DB team). Oh and I've never seen a SAP ABAP installation go 6 months without a consultant getting hired to solve some issue the company couldn't solve.
Just about the only really unique thing about ERP software is that the code for the "applications" lives in the database itself (MS access, or Dbase used to do that too). This is also just about the worst thing about them, as it means you don't get integration testing, or standard version control, or files, or ...
Yes, I know, somehow Oracle has convinced every MBA to do this rather than pay 5 SWEs to just make them PHP apps. And no, I don't mean those PHP apps will be worse, they'll be way better. It's standard so you can get consultants to attempt to fix the worst disasters.
Hm, your direction of comparison between "100K" and "a team of 5 SWE's" seems off. Also, you're going to need some non-SWE staff involved there, some combination of people providing product management, project management, UX design, and user research/contact.
Building internal replacements for the subset of functionality you use would be less than half the battle.
Convincing your auditors that those systems were representing your financial position correctly would be hell on earth. Like them or not, auditors know SAP, Oracle and the like - and have well-defined processes & experts to certify them.
There's large amounts of risk and cost on both sides of the equation.
Convincing your auditors that those systems were representing your financial position correctly would be hell on earth. Like them or not, auditors know SAP, Oracle and the like - and have well-defined processes & experts to certify them.
There's large amounts of risk and cost on both sides of the equation.
If you built a team that was good enough to build a custom ERP for your municipality, you’ve built an ERP company.
At that point you’d might as well compete with the likes of Oracle/SAP yourself, or the employees themselves will probably start their own startup to do so.
At that point you’d might as well compete with the likes of Oracle/SAP yourself, or the employees themselves will probably start their own startup to do so.
Former ERP consultant here. There are infinite ways to do business: different perspectives to take on the same situation, different deal structures, different data sources, reporting, etc.
You can run your business / org exactly as the ERP designers envisioned, but that means you'll have to adapt to your ERP, which is wrong-headed and certainly much more expensive in a large org.
Even the most vanilla implementation for a small business will have a degree of customization.
You can run your business / org exactly as the ERP designers envisioned, but that means you'll have to adapt to your ERP, which is wrong-headed and certainly much more expensive in a large org.
Even the most vanilla implementation for a small business will have a degree of customization.
> You can run your business / org exactly as the ERP designers envisioned, but that means you'll have to adapt to your ERP, which is wrong-headed and certainly much more expensive in a large org.
Bingo. I'm not going to tell my CEO to change how they run the business just to conform to how the lowest-bidder ERP decides I should do things.
Unless it's ServiceNow, for some reason.
Bingo. I'm not going to tell my CEO to change how they run the business just to conform to how the lowest-bidder ERP decides I should do things.
Unless it's ServiceNow, for some reason.
> Does ERP really need customisation?
Yes, for a number of reasons:
1. An ERP system consists of thousands of modules, out of which a smaller subset is needed by the customer. One typically pays by module so you want your number of modules to be as small as possible.
2. A customer this size has already implemented a number of business processes that they are not willing to sacrifice, even though an ERP provider will do their best to have them import "their" way of doing things.
3. Customers want to acquire an edge, not be on the same level playing field as the competition. "Kill you darlings" - eh, no.
4. If a municipality buys an ERP system tailored to manufacturing/trading, well then you have substantial customization ahead.
Yes, for a number of reasons:
1. An ERP system consists of thousands of modules, out of which a smaller subset is needed by the customer. One typically pays by module so you want your number of modules to be as small as possible.
2. A customer this size has already implemented a number of business processes that they are not willing to sacrifice, even though an ERP provider will do their best to have them import "their" way of doing things.
3. Customers want to acquire an edge, not be on the same level playing field as the competition. "Kill you darlings" - eh, no.
4. If a municipality buys an ERP system tailored to manufacturing/trading, well then you have substantial customization ahead.
> not be on the same level playing field as the competition.
Birmingham City Council doesn't have competition.
Birmingham City Council doesn't have competition.
Then Birmingham City Council doesn't need to use those modules.
But they may have specific municipal / local / state / national rules to comply with in ways that commercial entities do not.
These differences imply customizations.
But they may have specific municipal / local / state / national rules to comply with in ways that commercial entities do not.
These differences imply customizations.
It doesn't have to be explicitly monetary/capitalistic competition. They may still see other councils as competitors and strive to be "better" on various metrics whether it is efficiency, speed of processes, etc even without any direct financial benefit.
It really does. They are all custom tailored for each client. The customization includes data sources, processes, reports, and a range of other topics. It's difficult because the project is to replace a working system with another different working system with minimal downtime. Often, a large number of people need to be retrained on the replacement system -- a system that integrates with a labor force of 50,000 people is not uncommon.
it's less "customisation" than "implementation". they're not changing core code in the system, they're just writing all the config and the workflow apps on top. this is the case for any large organisation, whatever the ERP. And even more the case for a local government that is trying to use a tool designed for industry
Worst case the client wants the new system to emulate the old system, so yea, you need a lot of customization.
> Oracle ERP project disaster
Redundant headline. Oracle & ERP almost always implies disaster.
Seriously, never again. Ditto for IBM, and a lesser extent, SAP. I wish Red Hat had a real competitor, cuz Canonical ain't there yet.
Redundant headline. Oracle & ERP almost always implies disaster.
Seriously, never again. Ditto for IBM, and a lesser extent, SAP. I wish Red Hat had a real competitor, cuz Canonical ain't there yet.
Is that an example of the sunk cost fallacy, or corruption/lobbying?
My take is that it boils down to insane requirements from the buyer and yes-men sellers.
The technical problem is wanting one end-all goto system instead of like 20 different utilities I guess.
The technical problem is wanting one end-all goto system instead of like 20 different utilities I guess.
I haven't been on projects of this size, but with many of our customers a big issue is that the decisions are taken by people sufficiently high up in the organization that they don't know what's really going on, and without including key resources from lower levels to provide that insight.
In my experience it only takes one or two levels to get to that point.
Regarding the insane requirements, it's also my experience that a lot of companies think they're snowflakes, thinking they do something really special, when they're really just doing what everyone else is. For historical reasons they ended up doing it this way instead of that way and now they'd rather have the world change around them than change their ways.
In my experience it only takes one or two levels to get to that point.
Regarding the insane requirements, it's also my experience that a lot of companies think they're snowflakes, thinking they do something really special, when they're really just doing what everyone else is. For historical reasons they ended up doing it this way instead of that way and now they'd rather have the world change around them than change their ways.
> haven't been on projects of this size, but with many of our customers a big issue is that the decisions are taken by people sufficiently high up in the organization that they don't know what's really going on, and without including key resources from lower levels to provide that insight.
This is my experience working in government IT. The people whose job it is to go to meetings and talk end up being the ones representing the businesses interest and the vendor ends up running circles around them because they aren't in any way qualified to talk about something technical.
This is my experience working in government IT. The people whose job it is to go to meetings and talk end up being the ones representing the businesses interest and the vendor ends up running circles around them because they aren't in any way qualified to talk about something technical.
several valid viewpoints in this thread, describing portions of a difficult-to-describe situation. The word "qualified" jumps out for me here.. It could mean things like "sufficient technical background" and "of sound mind and problem solving skills" .. but in the govt context, "qualified" means exactly "you have legal permission" .. this is one of the several places that these projects break down, exactly. Those in business and those delivering permits, over time, learn that permits can be used to make money, and control future money, not work. The permit process for qualification also works at the bidding stage, where new entries are required to have their high school gradepoint checked, and hundred page report(s) to show "context" for the bid, yet existing payment contracts continue on in zombie mode for huge values, on a regular basis. This is like the force of gravity for these deals.. both sides, govt and big business, want lots of cash flow and no end in sight.
> Regarding the insane requirements, it's also my experience that a lot of companies think they're snowflakes
At least with anything government, there is another problem: changing processes often requires a lot of work, which means explaining to (completely clueless) politicians why something is necessary, get cost approval for each change, convince majorities... it's easier to have an omnibus "migrate to newest version of XYZ" package and to spend the money on making the system operate according to your whims than to fix the underlying bullshit.
At least with anything government, there is another problem: changing processes often requires a lot of work, which means explaining to (completely clueless) politicians why something is necessary, get cost approval for each change, convince majorities... it's easier to have an omnibus "migrate to newest version of XYZ" package and to spend the money on making the system operate according to your whims than to fix the underlying bullshit.
> The technical problem is wanting one end-all goto system instead of like 20 different utilities I guess.
At some point these systems have to share info, dump info somewhere (data lake, backups, whatever), and output info.
Inevitably there will be one or two systems that connect them.
Plus the overhead of dealing with 20+ different vendors, systems, updates, vulnerabilities, interconnections, etc. is a nightmare. There is a point where a "single source of truth" is too much effort and too expensive, but a clusterufck of different systems is not a great solution.
At some point these systems have to share info, dump info somewhere (data lake, backups, whatever), and output info.
Inevitably there will be one or two systems that connect them.
Plus the overhead of dealing with 20+ different vendors, systems, updates, vulnerabilities, interconnections, etc. is a nightmare. There is a point where a "single source of truth" is too much effort and too expensive, but a clusterufck of different systems is not a great solution.
They changed from SAP ERP to Oracle ERP. There were no 20 different utilities to begin with.
¿Por qué no los dos?
What does ERP mean in this context? Asking because it means something else that is making all this discussion of ERP projects and consultants sound quite funny.
At one point I contributed to "Odoo" (OpenERP). It essentially means having lots of Applications work against a single database so that everything about the whole company uses this single database.
ERP vendors generally have a whole bunch of standard applications ready. Things like inventory, sending out stuff, payroll (for X number of countries), ...
ERP vendors generally have a whole bunch of standard applications ready. Things like inventory, sending out stuff, payroll (for X number of countries), ...
> Things like inventory, sending out stuff, payroll (for X number of countries),
Long before I ever heard of ERP, I worked on the Burroughs accounting systems. They had inventory management, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, subcontractor accounting etc., all feeding into the general ledger.
So is that really what ERP is? Is it what used to be called an accounting package?
Long before I ever heard of ERP, I worked on the Burroughs accounting systems. They had inventory management, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, subcontractor accounting etc., all feeding into the general ledger.
So is that really what ERP is? Is it what used to be called an accounting package?
With several orders of magnitude difference in workload / transaction size, and a lot more features in non-financial areas. Most accounting systems can do the bare essentials around inventory management, HR, etc. - but very few can run & form the system of record for, say, operations at the scale of an F500.
Whether it makes sense nowadays to continue stuffing these all into one system centred around the general ledger is left as an exercise to the reader.
Whether it makes sense nowadays to continue stuffing these all into one system centred around the general ledger is left as an exercise to the reader.
Thanks! Still does nothing to break the association with the other definition for me though so I’ll add ERP vendors to the list of things to giggle at
A great deal of complex software "paradigms" aren't nearly as complex as they appear to be at first glance.
Most of these are built on a gimmick, the same as in the Open Source world. Every database has "their thing". Mysql "is fast and simple". PostgreSQL supports everything you could possibly want.
Oracle has their "fantastic" SQL compatibility and their fast clustering solutions. SAP has their "live indexes". Of course, both have implemented each other's features, and so has PostgreSQL at this point. So that apparently makes them great developers of timesheet software, right? Apparently to MBAs this makes sense.
These companies are essentially consultancy software development companies that have an in-house "core" software (Oracle, SAP, ...) that they can work with really well (in theory), and have standard solutions for many problems on that core. But 3 ABAP developers aren't that different from 3 PHP developers: they all do things slightly differently. And, yes, I do think SAP ABAP is "kind of" PHP. You can even make it look pretty similar, though it uses their internal stuff, not HTML. These companies are selling "quick" and "standard" business software development.
There are major differences too, though. SAP stores all it's code in the database itself, which prevents all development tools, from vim over git to CI/CD from working.
Of course this would mean Wordpress is ERP software ... and it kind of is, with enough plugins.
Most of these are built on a gimmick, the same as in the Open Source world. Every database has "their thing". Mysql "is fast and simple". PostgreSQL supports everything you could possibly want.
Oracle has their "fantastic" SQL compatibility and their fast clustering solutions. SAP has their "live indexes". Of course, both have implemented each other's features, and so has PostgreSQL at this point. So that apparently makes them great developers of timesheet software, right? Apparently to MBAs this makes sense.
These companies are essentially consultancy software development companies that have an in-house "core" software (Oracle, SAP, ...) that they can work with really well (in theory), and have standard solutions for many problems on that core. But 3 ABAP developers aren't that different from 3 PHP developers: they all do things slightly differently. And, yes, I do think SAP ABAP is "kind of" PHP. You can even make it look pretty similar, though it uses their internal stuff, not HTML. These companies are selling "quick" and "standard" business software development.
There are major differences too, though. SAP stores all it's code in the database itself, which prevents all development tools, from vim over git to CI/CD from working.
Of course this would mean Wordpress is ERP software ... and it kind of is, with enough plugins.
Enterprise Resource Planning.
Basically, the totality of "back-office" operations software. At minimum, it's usually accounting+finance, often including HR, sometimes also CRM. And in niche spaces, other stuff too (an ERP for higher education/colleges would also include student enrollment management, etc).
Basically, the totality of "back-office" operations software. At minimum, it's usually accounting+finance, often including HR, sometimes also CRM. And in niche spaces, other stuff too (an ERP for higher education/colleges would also include student enrollment management, etc).
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Birmingham Council has always been effective at wasting money.
Councils are I think too small to access GDS? If they could I'm sure the superior GDS project management would mitigate this kind of disaster.
I remember when the University of Cambridge had a similar disaster and ultimately published an inquiry: https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2001-02/weekly/5861/1.h...