Over twenty years of work in IT, we have heard desperate phrases from business owners more than once: "We spent more than $500,000 on implementation and got nothing," "We've been implementing it for three years now, and it's useless," "We've tried it, we know — it doesn't work." Why do some companies successfully launch a system, while others face endless "adventures," budget drains, and constant finger-pointing? Let's figure it out honestly and without sugarcoating.

How It All Begins: High Hopes and Choosing "Blindly"

Usually, the trigger is either the persuasion of consultants or a strict legal requirement to have systems of this class. The business conducts a superficial market analysis and subjectively chooses a brand: someone wants Oracle Solution, someone believes that SAP can do absolutely "everything," and someone looks pragmatically at the availability of Microsoft Business Solution (Navision). The system is chosen, the vendor is found. And here, at the stage of choosing the implementation team, the trap snaps shut.

There are only two paths, and both seem logical:

• In-house team. It looks attractive: everything is under control, data won't leak, responsiveness is higher, and salaries are lower than outsourcing rates.
• Outsourced team. Chosen in the hope that "that's where the real professionals work." In practice, they look for an integrator from the list of certified partners, simply choosing the lowest hourly rate or based on a random recommendation.

An integrator is chosen, the scope is agreed upon (verbally explaining what processes we want to automate, instead of preparing a detailed plan), the contract is signed, and the start of a new digital era is solemnly announced to the staff. But then the magic ends.

The Illusion of Busyness: Beautiful Reports, but Nothing to Touch

Time goes by, money regularly leaves the account, and progress reports land on the director's desk like clockwork. Everyone is busy. But there is nothing to experience live — the system does not work. The owner tries to understand what's going on and hears only well-argued explanations of why they need to wait just a little longer. And this happens with both the in-house team and the outsourced one.

Let's admit the bitter truth: being an expert in your own business does not mean being an expert in ERP implementation. Because of this, the team is chosen blindly. In-house employees are often motivated by a simple and clear process — to work in one comfortable place for as long as possible; they do not share the owner's goals. You are gathering an organization, not a team. As for outsourcing, it's often a typical "sweatshop" where the consultant and the developer don't even listen to each other, but simply mindlessly clock up billable hours.

The Main Secret of IT Sweatshops: What is the Contractor's True Motivation?

The key problem that businesses face is the contractor's complete lack of motivation for the final result. Many would argue: "But money is the main motivation! It motivates the integrator not to lose the client!". Yes, but no! Money motivates them to do the work they are paid for monthly or hourly for as long as possible.

What should you do? Look for a team led by a result-oriented consultant. Understanding the business logic, they will select the right developer for a specific technology. And if necessary, they will honestly suggest changing the system while still on the shore, rather than after you've gone a quarter of the way and burned a pile of money.

The Difference in Results: A Real-Life Example

Choosing the right team saves massive budgets. Let's look at a simple example from our practice: we automated several complex processes for a large insurance company. It took us up to two months to implement, taking into account the simultaneous execution of several parallel tasks. At the same time, the in-house employees of this company spent 6–8 months implementing similar tasks. That is the difference in speed, ROI, and focus on results.

By the way, if you want to know what the fundamental difference is between an effective IT team and a regular paper-pushing "organization" — leave a comment below, and we will break it down in detail in the next article! How is your ERP implementation going?