In 'Mission Critical' T.H. Davenport assures us that the golden era of the so-called mainframe 'legacy systems' is well and truly over. Since the end of the 1990's, and mainly after the year 2000 craze, the larger firms have more or less all switched to ERP software packages. T.H. Davenport doesn't hesitate to bestow these ERP's a brand-new acronym (ES for 'Enterprise Systems') to insist upon the fact that they have now grown out of simple resource planning.

Of course, there may be a few biting sarcasms here and there with regard to those ERP's, whenever experts or users alike are experiencing how bulky and archaic these systems are. Besides, they tend to rely on surreal long-term, hyper-hierarchical organisation tables and implementing them seems like a job for genuine Trojans. Yet, and however justified the criticisms, the author tells us that there are no alternative solutions to these ERP's. What about the Internet, then ? A simple means of accessing the data served by an ERP, agrees Mr Davenport.

Would the world of enterprise software converge towards imposing these suites which make it possible to merge all enterprise activities into one unbroken consistent value-chain, the long-awaited 'flow' of data from production to sales and vice versa ? Will that be the sign of the beginning of the end of Software history ? Yet, there is still a problem to solve : by whom and how will these systems be used. One has to assist, train and more than often twist the arm of those users, from top-management to the shop-floor.

One may even wonder whether those very users will not have to pay the price - one day - for the optimisation of their tasks, for ES's might very likely have made their positions redundant. ES's, provided they are compatible with eachother, will also help firms merge, if possible on a global level, which will once again stress the workforce issue. T.H. Davenport's merit in 'Mission Critical' is to bring us back to the reality of the changes impacting the modern business environment. I found it rather pleasant to get back to the basics of Corporate Management. ES's, because of the optimisation of processes they impose, are key to bringing excellence, competitiveness and value added for the end-customer [48 hr delivery for instance].

It is therefore a must-have, if one avoids a few exceptions. Yet the type of excellence produced by such implementations is bound to be short-lived, unfortunately. Once the members of an Industry have all implemented ES's within their walls, they are then faced with a total absence of differentiation since all their assumed client-benefits are similar. Airlines are sadly experiencing this issue at the moment. As a consequence, differentiation will have to take place elsewhere, i.e. with the Marketing of the product/service itself. Would it mean that ERP's promises bear in themselves their own limitations ?

Yet, the weirdest thing about 'Mission Critical' is that its release takes place (June 2000) at the very moment where all the major players of this market are going through a serious crisis. Baan was taken over at the end of may 2000,JD Edwards is the process of laying off 800 members of their staff [i.e. 15% of its total workforce] and SAP failed to convince the analysts gathered at their 2000 Berlin meeting that their future strategy was well oriented. Now that the year 2000 craze is behind us, ES's are proving weak when it comes to dealing with CRM functions, B2B exchanges and e-business. Besides, their technical foundations are ageing (many ES's still contain Cobol code lines) and last but not the least, clients are now reluctant to rely on one single software editor to handle the entirety of their business processes.

One will wonder whether this book wasn't published a trifle too late, and if some of T.H. Davenport's strong statements [ namely those regarding the role of the Internet ] are not contradicted by facts. Moreover, the replacement of one acronym by another [ ES for ERP ] reminds us that IT gurus often change the names of their concepts whenever there are signs that the fad is dying away.

Despite all that, one is sure to find 'mission critical' interesting because of all the background descriptions and the impressive organisational work carried out by the author (much of which must be ear-marked as Andersen's). Indeed, this fundamental work is stronger than fads or fashion. A flurry of examples will give the reader of this book a good idea of the routine work that is usually carried out by the ones in charge of organisational duties [vision, common language, process-optimisation, application portfolio analysis, ...]. This routine work, however unspectacular, is what makes things happen rather than not. All those ordinary, straightforward elements form the basis for long-term work, with a strong emphasis on quality. As to ES's, should we believe IDC's Christian Munz when he says that 'today's ERP's will be tomorrow's legacy systems'?

(Oct 2000)