Waste Management sues SAP over ERP implementation (original article)

Funny, I was just talking to my dad about this today. He works in finances for Waste Management and told me how much of a complete disaster rolling out the SAP system was. Screens would take minutes to go between, entering new customers into the system took 15 minutes as opposed to the promised minute, and customer orders were getting lost and duplicated constantly. The software basically could not handle any load at all. And this was just in one of WM's smallest markets.

My father mentioned SAP told WM the software was '90%' done and so they might as roll it out and patch up the last '10%'. Instead, he said the software was '10%' complete with '90%' completely broken. They had to rollback to the old software as they were losing customers in markets using the new software.

WM is now at least 5 years behind on upgrading their billing systems as they have to basically start the entire process from scratch. SAP tried to deliver a customized version of off the shelf software and failed miserably. I hope they get held accountable and destroyed in court. It disgusts me when companies can take ridiculously large contracts for solved problems and not deliver and then still get away with the money.

I cannot convey how painful an experience I had implementing SAP at my last company. Big companies that aren't technology focused still need a way to keep all their information (orders, customers, inventory, invoices, sales, manufacturing, financials, accounting) organized. With SAP, the cure is worse than the disease.

Well, it's nice to see the snowjob that is enterprise software finally being help to account, but I doubt this suit is going to very far.

I'm truly not trying to bail out SAP here, but doesn't WM have a little bit of accountability here? How could they purchase something that supposedly is designed for the Waste & Recycling industry and be so far off on their analysis of its fit? If I'm a talent scout for Playboy and I pay Judge Judy $20 million to pose because her husband said she was hot, shouldn't I question my decision capabilities?