images In a Wall Street Journal post “SAP Sued Over Tech Jargon” Ben Worthen reported a court case filed by Waste Management Company against SAP.

The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.

- Lewis Thomas

The plaintiff entered into agreement with SAP in December 2005:

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. - December 15, 2005 - SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE: WMI), the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America, to transform Waste Management’s customer and revenue management needs by transitioning its software solution environment to mySAP™ Business Suite.

The fact that it took WM over two years to realize that expected “out-of-the-box” software they have purchased either did not exist or did not meet their needs, begs for some questions:

  • Was it really a software project? The wording in the announcement imply serious Business Process Re-engineering component and therefore claims of deceit cannot be taken seriously.

“demonstrations, SAP officials led Waste Management to believe that it was looking at the finished product, Waste Management alleges, when in reality it was mock-up of the software “intended to deceive.”

  • Did WM Management really outsourced their Organizational Transformation program planning to outside vendor? My interpretation of SAP Safe Passage program involves adoption of best practices and processes as they are pre-build in SAP software, but how could they possibly be responsible for the internal change, adoption and compliance management. Could one be so naive?

This is reminiscent of Hershey, American LaFrance, and other, less publicized transformation debacles. While partners, suppliers, and other players are different - the causes are pretty much the same:

  1. Treating Organizational Transformation as a Software, i.e. IT Initiative;
  2. No holistic planning (I can’t help myself - “end-to-end);
  3. Responsibility is delegated without authority.