Because many senior managers have believed (and continue to believe) in the promise of SCM systems, they have put substantial resources behind these projects. During the past four years, companies across a range of industries have spent more than $1 billion on SCM system software licenses alone. They've made a huge investment in implementation resources as well. The time required to implement an SCM system ranges from six months to four years, depending on the number of business units, functionality scope, and configuration complexity. After implementation has begun, it can take 18 months to three years to reach targeted benefits. If measured from the time of the initial investment decision, the typical time to achieve steady-state performance levels and to recoup the investment can be five years or longer.
With so many resources on the line and with such a long nail-biting period before seeing a pay-off companies must be prepared to make required changes even after an SCM system project is complete. We call this the "post-implementation era." In the last 10 years, many companies employed aggressive implementation schemes, often emphasizing IT functionality at the expense of business-process development. As a result, expected benefits were sometimes not fully realized.