Upgrade: Obligation or Opportunity?
Some folks rank an upgrade right up there with routine maintenance on your car and a trip to the dentist. You know it has to be done, and everyone can tell you why you should do it, but it is just so darn hard to get motivated about it. Let’s be honest, you have heard more than once that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, so why are so many people concerned?
The obvious answer lies in things like tax tables and other statutory requirements that can only be met with the latest and greatest release of software. Another answer lies in the fixes and patches that repair code that is causing you pain. The less obvious answer is the ability to improve your situation, whether it is reducing the cost of ownership, realizing new efficiencies, or adding new functionality.
The difficulty in the ERP space is balancing the needs with the wants. Every end-user can tell you what should be improved to make their life easier. At the same time, the formula is just not that simple. New features and functionality take time to analyze and implement. De-customizing is almost as challenging as customizing. So, for many companies, the stock answer is a “technical upgrade” where the apps are moved to the newest version, but the functionality stays status quo.
The technical upgrade works – low cost while maintaining support. It’s quick, limits the disruption to the current schedules, doesn’t require a large integrated team, and allows you to check off that box on the audit checklist. But the real question is what it costs you? In a world where social media reacts in minutes rather than hours, what is the cost of not adopting new features? And what is the cost of continuing to do business “the way we’ve always done it”?
Upgrades are opportunities to adapt and evolve, and while many companies perform upgrades because of an obligation to stay current, the real value in the upgrade comes when you take time to understand the features and functionality that can change the way you do business. Every significant upgrade has them, and your support dollars pay for them, so why do so many companies forego them?
It is interesting to me that as I look back over the last 6-8 years, there was incredible stress, consternation and debate about whether Oracle would continue development on the PeopleSoft applications after the acquisition. Yet today, I still encounter customers who are at least four releases back and wonder what all the fuss was about. After all, if they stopped at 7.5 or 8.0, then what benefit have they received from any of the post-acquisition development?
I am encountering more and more customers who are now looking to upgrade, but too many are talking about a re-implementation. It is always a project. It should just never be that big of a project.
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