Top 5 Setbacks for ERP Software during 2011

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Bangalore: The year 2011 had portrayed a gloomy picture for some of the ERP based applications, where it proved to be much costlier than the agreed deal. In addition, some of the unfortunate organizations have even recorded losses in businesses due to glitches and implementation issues of ERP based applications. The year witnessed some of the high profile multiple lawsuits in IT. Here's a list of some of the gigantic setbacks for ERP software during 2011: Deloitte Consulting and SAP in Soup over the Futile $20 million Worth ERP Project. The Marin county of California had accused the SAP- based Deloitte Consulting of embezzlement of cash of $20 million. The court alleged that the accused had assigned the tasks of deployment of ERP software to inept professionals; and also blamed them of colluding with key Managers. The Marin County announced that the new software installed turned out to be more erroneous than its legacy financial planning and management application system. According to Marin county officials' version, they had sparse understanding of the ERP and hence they relied entirely upon the Consultant. Moreover, the failure has opened a can of worms in the deal, regarding the expertise of SAP consultants hired to do the deployment job. This began questioning of credibility of the Deloitte Consulting firm in completion of projects for Public Sector. Nevertheless, there are other allegations against the Consulting firm from public bodies in execution of similar projects such as in Colorado, Los Angeles and San Antonio. Epicor Faces Legal Action in the ParknPool ERP Implementation Case The furniture seller firm, ParknPool, based in Virginia, United States had usurped its Enterprise Resource Planning solutions from QuickBooks to Epicor's product solutions. However, the company expressed deep discontent with the product as it failed to meet the deliverables on time; and also lamented upon its decision to choose Epicor for the job. It has now sued Epicor over the issue in court. A spokesperson from PayNPark, which is a "drop-ship" company, mentioned that the company will experience losses during the year due to this IT system failure. According Jim Fonner, Administrative Manager, Virginia, PaynPark, "Epicor said they could do it in seven weeks. We gave them seven months, and we got zero." He further added that "I couldn't even look at a profit-and-loss statement. We couldn't process orders. We were saying, 'QuickBooks is so much better than this' and we were paying $3,500 a year for it." CareSource Sues Lawson Software Lawson Software, the Minesota based software firm in the United States is mired in a web of lawsuit over the failed ERP solutions for CareSource Management Group. The US based Healthcare plan management provider, CareSource says that the product couldn't even go beyond the testing phase. It had numerous unresolved issues and hence CareSource is demanding a minimum of $1.5 million to recuperate from the business damages and losses incurred due to it. Furthermore, the company said that some critical failures were observed while transferring information between the two components of the solutions: the financial applications and the Lawson Talent management module. The UK government pulls the plug on the multi-billion dollar NHS IT Project The UK government had undertaken an ambitious IT project to connect the England's 30,000 General practitioners across 300 hospitals, so that the patients can quickly gain access to their personal health care data. But, it turned out to be a catastrophe as it was termed as unfit to serve the modern NHS needs. However, some of the features are in consideration, especially the services such as the IT system for storing and handling X-ray images among varied others (also known as PACS); and also the Electronic Prescription Services and the Choose and Book. The mammoth loss on the exchequer is approximated to be a whooping £13 billion. The rambling project was embarked for the UK citizens in 2002. The Health secretary of England, Andrew Lansley said "Labour's IT programme let down the NHS and wasted taxpayers' money by imposing a top-down IT system on the local NHS, which didn't fit their needs. We will be moving to an innovative new system driven by local decision-making. This is the only way to make sure we get value for money from IT systems that better meet the needs of a modernised NHS." Oracle Faces Allegations from Montclair State University for its Failed PeopleSoft Project The Software giant, Oracle gets entangled in legal complications with the US based Montclair State University in New Jersey for having failed to fully implement the PeopleSoft solutions. Under the agreement, the company was to deliver the IT services for management and administration of campus planning, University budget, admissions, Payroll, advising and student records. There were also accusations of Extortion and lies from Oracle, as the company states that the delay in delivering the product solutions had catapulted its budget from the initial figure to an excess of $20 million. A spokesperson from the University said "Oracle failed to deliver key implementation services, caused critical deadlines to be missed, refused to make available computer resources that it had promised, failed to deliver properly tested software, and, overall, failed to manage properly the project." Oracle was earlier embroiled in a slew of controversies regarding failures to deliver the promised services across universities such as North Dakota University, Florida A&M and Indiana University. In addition, the Cleveland State University faced a similar glitch with the implementation of the PeopleSoft product, where the upshot was delay in dispatching of cheques for students receiving financial aids.