Brian’s Song
LSU CIO Brian Voss bemoans overspending on collegiate ERP systems, and larger campus issues are crystallized.
In our June 28, 2006 C-Level View
eLetter, Louisiana
State University CIO Brian
Voss delivers a strong argument against
some current enterprise resource planning
(ERP) vendor practices. Yet, while I
see validity in a number of the points he
makes, I do feel Voss neglects to
address two critical underlying issues.
Voss’s criticism is aimed at what he
sees as the underhanded practice, on
the part of the vendors, of drawing institutions
into hugely expensive implementations,
and then, after the fact, offering
increased ERP capability and better
return on investment (ROI) for “small”
additional investments. Voss claims
these investments can hit seven figures,
and adds that vendors often do not
even clarify ROI before the initial investments
are made—only after the fact,
when they are seeking more dollars.
He also claims that ERP vendors are
branching into services to capitalize on
campuses’ needs to augment systems
which should have met those needs
from the get-go. Finally, Voss brings up
the issue of the competition for techspending
dollars: He maintains that the
flow of dollars into administrative systems
“will completely consume our centralized
IT resources in the very near
future, and…CIOs will no longer be
able…to meet the broad spectrum of IT
needs on campus.” He is concerned that
refocusing on ERP will lead to a “fracturing
of IT on our campuses.”
Many CIOs are even blunter about
these issues than Voss is. One technologist
told me last year, “I’m sick of
fighting for every dollar for any number
of important tech purchases, while the
president directs millions into ERP.”
Yet, the fault lies not in those sly ERP
vendors, but in ourselves. In the years I
have monitored ERP spending and
implementation in both corporate and
academic America, I have witnessed
identical missteps and their results: 1)
Any institution or organization that allows
technology purchasing decisions to be
made by a single office—the president’s
or the CIO’s—often finds itself faced
with faulty tech purchases; 2) any organization
that allows a vendor to present
an ROI picture prior to a technology purchase
often rues its product choice.
Yes, academic institutions have a
habit of fostering spending resentment:
One area gets money while another is
overlooked. But when it comes to tech
spending, it d'esn’t have to be that way.
Build and foster tech-review and decision-
making teams comprised of representatives
from all involved campus
areas: IT, academic, financial, operational,
even student. Commit to decisions
made multilaterally from the ground
up, taking into account all pertinent
needs. Commit also to decisions that
are made only after a thorough examination
of potential benefits and ROI has
been completed, and never allow a vendor
of any product or service to conduct
that research in place of the institution.
If these measures are put into place, it
is more likely that no ERP purchase will
disappoint at the levels still being reported
by some institutions. It is also less
likely that one tech purchase will be
made at the sacrifice of another. Voss
makes valid points about ERP nightmares,
but that d'esn’t mean they have
to persist.
—Katherine Grayson, Editor-In-Chief
What have you seen and heard? Send to: kgrayson@101com.com.