(in toto)
I have this theory about the behavior of squirrels...
You are driving down a street in your car and up ahead there is a squirrel at the side of the road eating a nut. You aren't on an intercept course, there is no way you are going to hit that squirrel. So what does the squirrel do? At the very last possible moment, rather than watching you drive by, THE SQUIRREL DARTS STRAIGHT FOR YOUR CAR, passing inches in front of or behind the front tires.
Why does he do that?
But judging by the number of squirrels squished on the road, there must be some risk to this game, so why does he do it?
The answer has nothing to do with cars because squirrel psychology predates both cars and men. For the squirrel, in fact, there may be no difference between my car and an ice age saber-toothed tiger.
The squirrel doesn't trust me. Sure, it looks like I'm not even chasing him, but he's a tasty squirrel and I'm a saber-toothed tiger. By waiting until the last possible moment then running TOWARD me, the squirrel is rushing the net, moving the confrontation effectively forward in time in such a way that the squirrel is pushing his tactical advantage.
As a predator, I'm simply not supposed to expect this squirrel to be running toward me, rather than away. He's using the element of surprise to confuse me. And it works, because I've never hit a squirrel with my car.
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If you aren't familiar, Enterprise Resource Management is the process of tracking everything that flows through a business, including money, materials, people, and of course time. Building an ERP system is a HUGE and expensive undertaking. Companies think they need ERP systems when they decide it is time to kick-start their business. Perhaps a competitor is underpricing them, or is more profitable. Perhaps they are losing market share and customers. The real heart of the problem is the executives don't have a full understanding of what is happening in their business, so they can't make informed decisions to improve that business.
Sometimes ERP systems come about as a response to inadequate IT, but more often it is just a very expensive alternative to walking around and talking to employees. Putting in an ERP system isn't going to improve the business by itself: you still have to figure out what the data means and make decisions.
Implementing a big ERP system -- any ERP system -- is expensive. The problem is there is not enough return on investment from the ERP system itself to justify the cost. You need more. The real savings must come from improving your firm's business processes. So a huge business redesign project is often coupled with many ERP projects.
This is not just a matter of buying an SAP license and getting data flowing from one end of the company to the other. Somebody has to make some sense of the data. And that sensibility can come only through an understanding of context -- how the data relates to the real functions of the business. Which is a long way of saying that every SAP customer probably needs a different view of the available data to be in the best possible position for acting on that data. Unlike standardized financial statements, the most powerful ERP screens and reports will vary dramatically from company to company, so the ability to customize SAP is vital to obtaining the maximum possible benefit from the software.
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{Answer (or Adv?..)} There is a product called GuiXT that is an interface builder shipped for free with every copy of SAP R/3. ...
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The squirrel dives for your front tires because by ice age rules that's the thing to do, though at an obvious cost today in squished squirrels. Similarly, SAP deliberately hides the power of GuiXT thinking it could hurt consulting revenue when, in fact, it could INCREASE sales revenue by broadening the market and making R/3 less scary for companies to install and run.
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