TOCICO

It's been well over 10 years since the book, Necessary but not Sufficient (NBNS) was published and yet the rate of success in IT projects – including, unfortunately SAP implementations, has not dramatically improved. SAP’s own benchmarking and research from other leading ICT research organizations shows that still around 70% of all ICT projects are not deemed a 'great' success. This is despite the fact that the power and coverage of the technology and implementation know-how has grown dramatically. Could theory of constraints help to unlock the inherent value potential of SAP? This paper aims to answer this question, starting with the complexities, trade-offs and uncertainties that make implementing an ERP system such as SAP so challenging. It then provides an overview of how a new NBNS/TOC-based 'ValueERP' process, originally developed by Dr. Alan Barnard at Goldratt Research Labs, was proven effective to unlock more value faster from SAP implementations at for example African Explosives, ABB, Ditch Witch, Daiwa House and BHP Billiton. In 2012, on the initiative of Chris Sims who heads up the SAP Business Transformation Services (BTS) unit for MENA region, SAP MENA (Middle East and North African) formed a research partnership with Goldratt Research Labs to further research and improve this ValueERP process to go beyond just using TOC to implement SAP and / or SAP to implement TOC with SAP MENA clients – one of the fastest growing SAP markets in the world. Chris and Alan will share their experiences and new insights from this research partnership, specifically how they are using NBNS and strategy & tactic (S&T) trees to identify and address the 5 main causes of value being lost within any IT implementation – not just SAP. They also share lessons learned in trying to implement TOC in the SAP services business in the MENA market unit and provide a peak at their future joint research focus on understanding and unlocking the 'real power of a technology such as SAP'.