SAP

Historically, businesses have implemented process-enabling applications such as SAP with a view to achieve benefits that are clearly stated but not necessarily based upon measurable factors or traceable attributes. The expected benefits, although documented in business cases may, or may not, have been realized but the progress of realizing the expected value has not been followed throughout the program with a view to keeping the expectations attainable. Also, in typical circumstances, the original business case would have been ‘filed’ for posterity and left to gather dust on a shelf, not reviewed until after the point of no return, and after it has become clear that the intended benefits had evaporated while the program leadership’s back was turned.

Even the most attentive of program leaderships may have looked at the return on their investments at some point after the implementations have been completed, accepting the ensuing process performance dip that the much-flaunted bell curve had forecast during the discovery phases conducted many months earlier. Even if documented benefits could have been achieved, several causes of ‘value leakage’ could have arisen but were not prevented.

By setting metrics by which value realization can be tracked throughout the program, with the stated business case benefits as ever-present targets and by ensuring the causes of value leakage are nullified, the anticipated ROI can be attained.

The team at the Infosys booth can discuss value leakage and how to realize value in a program.

Author: Mike Smythe