One of the main reasons for companies to engage in global rollout initiatives is to not only renew local ERP applications to state-of-the-art technology and functionality, but also to reduce or limit implementation and operation costs. Another main reason – without preference between these two – is the business requirement to standardize or harmonize business processes and data.

How BearingPoint brings value

• Overcome the “historically grown” ERP landscape by harmonizing ERP installations and either combine multiple instances into some, a few or just one ERP instance.
• Analyze requirements and risks carefully: there is no generic formula or ready-to-go concept. Different scenarios need valuation.
• Valuation needs criteria: our valuation methods guide you through an objective way to select and document your best decisions.
• Harmonization needs to march in time: ERP systems, business processes and (master) data.

ERP architecture harmonization can cost a fortune and may include many risks. On the other hand the business case is not always easy to calculate because process costs normally do not come from standard controlling reports. What to harmonize in which way and to what extent is an individual decision for every client and needs strong alignment with the client’s business strategy. Besides all strategic thoughts and IT cost optimization, there is still the principle of “keeping it simple”. That should drive harmonization initiatives because a very complex “harmonization” could be even worse than little harmonization but a manageable IT-landscape.