Everyone thinks ERP failures start in the software.
A misconfiguration here…
A missing feature there…
A module that “doesn’t work the way we expected.”
But after seeing so many implementations up close, I can tell you this:
Most ERP problems don’t start in the system.
They start in the conversations that never happen.
The assumptions people keep in their heads but never say out loud.
The processes everyone follows differently because they were never truly defined.
The meetings where teams “agree,” but nobody actually walks out aligned.
Sales thinks one thing. Purchasing thinks another.
Finance has a completely different picture.
And everyone’s working hard — just not together.
By the time the ERP shows cracks, the real issue has been there for months or even years.
And this is the part that surprises most people:
When you fix the communication…
When you define the process…
When teams finally get aligned…
Even an average ERP suddenly performs like a great one.
Because clarity is what makes a system work.
Alignment is what makes a business move.
And the hardest problems in ERP aren’t technical — they’re human.
Fix the invisible issues, and the visible ones disappear.