ENTERPRISE APPS: Resuscitate or Replace?

If the enterprise applications you own today to drive your business processes are more than 3-5 years old, then chances are they may no longer offer the huge benefits in increased efficiency and effectiveness that they once did. In practical terms, they still get the job done, but cumulative workarounds to accommodate changed business needs make them less efficient than they used to be.

Sometimes we hold onto the old because the need to change isn’t glaringly obvious, even if we know our enterprise solutions have outlived their usefulness. Other times it’s to avoid the disruption a replacement solution would cause. Or to avoid a cost we’re not sure we can fully justify.

But just as often, we hold the unrealistic expectation that a new enterprise application will make our process problems disappear. Or we believe the sales rap, I mean rep – and forget to make sure his offering is really aligned with how we operate our business. Too often, we don’t have any expectations at all; it’s just a chase after the latest and greatest technology.

None of these approaches make much sense. But here are some considerations that do:

1. The greater the number of people who use the software application, the greater the productivity loss if it’s inefficient.
2. The more the company depends on application data to make business decisions, the greater the potential for business loss if that information isn’t reliable or readily retrievable.
3. The higher the employee turnover rate during ownership, the more likely the application isn’t used optimally.
4. The more complex the enterprise application, the more cumbersome the manual workarounds.
5. The more the company is focused on the newest and coolest technology, the greater the likelihood that an older application isn’t fully optimized.
6. The less integrated the entire delivery chain is, the greater the opportunity to increase overall delivery performance without replacing any component applications.
7. The more an organization values formal training, the more likely the application is utilized optimally.

In practical terms, if you are losing customer-facing opportunities in Sales, Marketing, Customer or Tech Support, you are potentially facing loss of brand reputation. Lost opportunity may be difficult to measure but we know where to find it on the top line.

Lowered employee productivity is another consideration, but a real red flag is employee departures to more competitive environments. If your environment can’t attract or keep the talent you want, then it’s past time to reconsider upgrading.

But before you decide to replace, your analysis should also consider missed opportunities with the investments you’ve already made. For instance, if you’ve let your maintenance contract expire, will renewal get you substantial upgrades that will bridge some of the functionality gaps? Or, perhaps comprehensive user and sys admin training will bootstrap application effectiveness at far less cost than replacing. And third, if your product or service delivery chain isn’t fully integrated and automated end-to-end, the greatest productivity gains are at these points of hand-off, from one functional group to the next. Eliminating double data entry, for instance, can save time, reduce errors and substantially increase customer satisfaction. If done right, it will always deliver the return you’re looking for.

Probing for answers in these key areas can give you an idea whether you can breathe additional life into your current enterprise application, or if it’s time to look at alternatives. A soft economy is the perfect time to seek gains in operational efficiency and effectiveness; how you go about it has to make sense for your business.