The Strength of the Major Players
This successful business, operating as a group of companies, had clearly outgrown its previous ERP system, which could no longer adequately support its operations and growth plans. Management assessed the options and initially selected one of the best-known enterprise resource planning solutions as a potential replacement. All modules designed around standard processes appeared particularly well suited to tasks that did not require company-specific operations to be modeled. Based on the consultations, inventory management, master data storage and management, and similar areas were all fully covered. These are, in fact, precisely the kinds of tasks that a standalone workflow solution can often support efficiently only in part. Implementing and using these modules significantly reduces the company's administrative burden. The work performed within them is clear to employees, supporting day-to-day operations and making them more consistent. It therefore became clear that the new ERP would represent a significant step forward for activities involving the repetitive processing of large volumes of data through well-defined processes. Compared with the existing enterprise resource planning system, the potential efficiency gains were substantial, and management was determined to realize them. Naturally, during the preparation phase, they also identified and assessed the potential risks associated with the transition, implementation and operation of the new system.
Limitations and Opportunities
During detailed planning, however, requirements emerged that would involve substantial development work within the core system, repeatedly pushing up the projected costs. Naturally, the ERP developer had proposals and solutions to develop for each of these requirements. Yet the total cost grew to a level that could have called the economic viability of the investment into question. The need for custom extensions and development arose particularly in operational areas reflecting the group's unique processes. Examples included cases where several group companies were involved in a given process, sometimes within a shared project, and the individual subprocesses and activities performed across different systems needed to be tracked on a single platform. Another challenge was that project tasks across the companies did not necessarily run sequentially; in many cases, they ran in parallel. Alongside continuous status tracking, the company therefore needed a comprehensive solution capable of assigning, tracking and recording tasks. At this point, management faced a choice. One option was, of course, to purchase and implement the complete ERP system with every custom requirement included. However, precisely because of these specialized, targeted extensions, this approach would require a much longer lead time and the significant additional expenditure already mentioned, typically several times the base cost of the system. The alternative was to build on the ERP system's stability, capabilities and highly reliable operation by configuring company-specific workflows in a separate system that could integrate with the ERP, making the planned transition faster and more cost-effective.
The Solution: xFLOWer
In our work, we often encounter similar management dilemmas: how complex should an ERP system be, given the company's size and resources? How much investment is justified to ensure that every operational subprocess can be managed within the ERP? In such cases, xFLOWer experts begin with a precise assessment of the current situation and requirements. It is important to identify the smaller processes and applications that will need to be integrated into the new ecosystem, often operating outside the ERP system or without any formal controls at all. Only then can the real benefits of each system, the return on investment and the client's priorities be properly evaluated. In many cases, a focused assessment reveals that the existing ERP does not need to be replaced at all; only integration and the missing extensions need to be provided. A workflow system can fully deliver the missing process management capabilities, creating a tailored IT ecosystem. Our experience shows that this approach is popular not only among SMEs with limited resources, but also among large enterprises. For the client described above, we would firmly recommend a hybrid solution in which a professional ERP is supported by a well-structured workflow system that is flexible and easy to extend. This makes it possible to formalize company-specific operating models in the short term, while ensuring that future changes do not require substantial expenditure at a major vendor's development rates.
