If you were to ask the people in customer support how often IT problems are not really technology problems but human errors, it becomes clear why most exercise programs fail to work. It is often the human, and not the program, that fails to execute. Or how about exercise programs...ok, better not go there.

The same logic applies when it comes to software implementations. The ultimate success and return on investment is as dependent upon process change as it is upon the software. To get the touted benefits, the software alone is not enough, processes must be changed to get the benefits.

After spending the week at SAPPHIRE, the most fascinating session to me was a round table that included an MIT professor discussing his study on "Virtuous Cycles". The conclusion of the study on cross-industry ERP systems is that the success depends as much on behavior change within the company (Process management) as it does on the implementation of the software. Particularly surprising was his candor in that he mentioned that if companies are not willing to invest in the behavior change process, they are actually likely to be worse off by buying the software (looking at key financial metrics over 5 years). But if companies do change the processes, once the return is made on the base components the return on subsequent components is more and more likely, and the ROI on these components is in 12 months or less.

A discussion among analysts at lunch argued that 75% of IT project failures have nothing to do with the quality of the product, but the lack of buy-in to the process change. I would argue it is closer to 90% on most software project failures. Cultures resist change, especially retail cultures which are often driven by people who went to college on the side of the university "where no math is required". These cultures demonstrate a high level of resistance to both IT change and process change. This makes it extremely challenging for any software component to achieve its full potential.

My wife has a favorite craft retailer who has finally added PC-based POS. However, they are not using a scanner and continue to hand-key each item. So they are tracking data better on the back end, but not getting the ROI from increased productivity on the front end. Are they truly going to perform better as a company with a POS but not the scanner?

So before you make that next software purchase, make sure that the groundwork is in place for the change management that is going to be required. Otherwise, it is likely it will be just like that ab-lounger you bought on late night TV. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but ended up being just a waste of money.