As a result, he said, SAP is often left to fix a major problem that might have been minor had the customer notified SAP earlier. SAP has acknowledged recent problems with enterprise resource planning implementations at Whirlpool Corp. and Hershey Foods Corp., but Plattner said these were mainly issues revolving around failed integration of non-SAP systems. He also said SAP has remedied the Whirlpool situation. SAP's Angel Program delivers high-level experts to customers who are struggling with implementations, but many customers are reluctant to use it, Plattner said. The issue often boils down to one of egos, as in-house IT professionals try to do too much on their own.
Some people can handle that.
Plattner gave two examples of emergencies SAP helped solve at late stages. In one case, the German airline Lufthansa reported trouble with SAP that was causing flight delays. In another, W.W. Grainger Inc., a Lake Forest, Ill., distributor of MRO supplies, was struggling to integrate SAP applications with other back-end applications. In both cases, Plattner said, problems would have been easier to solve and consequences less serious had the companies pulled SAP experts into the mix at an earlier stage. While SAP's applications can suffer from some performance shortfalls, the company is not usually the culprit in failed implementations, he said.