If good things truly come in small packages, maybe you should be suspicious of the gigantic process software provided by SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft and Oracle, among others. Installing such humongous packages often can lead to equally huge headaches. Common glitches include time and cost overruns, frustration when your company's processes don't fit the system design and the seemingly endless struggle to get processes and systems to work together. And major efficiencies don't come from technology alone.
Big payoffs happen only when underlying work processes change.
But read on, because I'm not categorically saying large, packaged systems can't work or shouldn't even be tried until a company's processes have been completely understood and redesigned. That notion comes after years of watching senior line managers struggle to make big change happen, often by trial and error. It isn't easy to find the change lever in a company. It often lies somewhere between fear and vision. And just getting change started can be problematic, particularly when a business is doing well and people don't see the need for change.