Two shops, the same software, opposite outcomes

Two businesses of similar size adopt the same system in the same month with the same configuration. A year later one runs on it entirely and the other uses it for billing and nothing else.

The instinct is to look for a technical difference. There usually is not one.

One person whose job got easier when the data was right. Not a manager who mandated it, and not necessarily anyone senior. Often the person who does the daily close, or the one who has to answer when a customer disputes a bill.

That person notices when something looks wrong, because a wrong number costs them time. They ask. They correct it. They tell somebody when a process is not being followed. None of that is in a project plan and all of it is what keeps a system true.

Nothing dramatic. Billing continued because billing is unavoidable. Stock adjustments stopped being recorded because nobody chased them. Within a few months the stock figure was known to be unreliable, so people stopped consulting it, so there was even less reason to maintain it.

By the end of the year the business had concluded the software did not suit them, which was a reasonable conclusion from the evidence available to them.

It is a fair question to ask before an implementation and an uncomfortable one to answer, because the honest answer is sometimes nobody.

Where it is nobody, the options are to appoint someone and give them the time, or to wait. Proceeding anyway produces the second shop, and everybody involved knew it was likely.