The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Information Technology People

I have a number of friends and relatives who, when they ask what I do for a living, I reply “Computers”.  This is a catch all answer that normally elicits one of two responses. Firstly, “Oh, that’s interesting, how are the kids?” and secondly, “I’m looking to buy a computer for home, what do you recommend?”  To avoid getting involved in helping someone make a decision as to which PC to buy I reply that I only deal in enterprise computing and that the starting price is £100k. That normally finishes the conversation off.

In reality I am in the business of helping manufacturing companies achieve greater value through the application of technology. Mainly through the optimisation and deployment of ERP systems and extended functionality such as shop floor data collection, real time manufacturing machine performance management and the application of automated data collection.

Some people persist and demand to know more about what I actually do and it is always entertaining to watch their eyes glaze over by the time I reach the second sentence. I’m not upset. These friends are from other walks of life such as the caring professions or are personal tax advisors or, dare I admit it, from marketing.

However, I do have a good circle of friends that I have met through my work and they completely understand what I am talking about. I have other friends too who work in the manufacturing industry.  Almost all of them have heard the expression ‘ERP’. They’ve either witnessed it directly (some say suffered), or are aware that the company they work for has an ERP system.

It really is quite a shock then to come across companies in manufacturing industry that are of reasonable size that are completely oblivious to what ERP is all about – and to what extent the business may be affected.

A year or so ago I came across a business that had been acquired by a company based in another country. The head office had sent over a computer with a tier 2 software product on it and told them that this was now the corporate standard and that they must implement it.    

I recently had a further conversation. They decided to implement this system by giving it to the IT manager and telling him to get on with it. No plan, no business case, no budget, no buy-in, no project team, no sponsorship – no hope!

I feel like reporting the senior management to the RSPCITP (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Information Technology People). There clearly is no understanding of what ERP is about, how complicated it can be, that it is not like Microsoft Word – install and use. It truly is bizarre.

 Anyway, I am now going over to explain to the senior people within the business all about ERP – It’s great. I should be able to talk about it for hours and people will actually listen. I hope.