Business Process Improvements vs. Product Purchases

I had lunch with a team last week that worked for a large commercial truck manufacturer. They said they have been focusing their IT efforts on business process improvements, rather than purchasing new products and services. He said many business process issues had been ignored in favor of throwing more technology and solutions at the problem in the past, however, in today's climate they are looking at actually improving the processes.

This was an interesting discussion and got me thinking. Not every problem needs a new layer in the technology stack to fix it. Many companies that I have been working with lately are looking to consolidate on less technology, not more.

Today I spoke with a company with multiple ERPs and multiple EDI systems. Again, many of their process problems were the result of trying to support too many different complex technology environments. Their goals for 2009 and 2010 were to standardize, simplify and consolidate IT environments and technology stacks.

SAP customers who are looking to consolidate on an SAP instance, often contact SAP to ask how to additionally consolidate B2B and EDI systems and processes at the same time. The following 2 articles discuss this topic.

• SAP-centric EDI/B2B - http://b2b-bpo.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-does-it-mean-to-have-sap-centric.html
• SAP Netweaver Approach to EDI - http://b2b-bpo.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-edi-approach-for-sap-netweaver.html

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EDI, B2B Strategies http://b2b-bpo.blogspot.com/
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