Have you ever wondered why every time you hear a story about an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation failure, the vendor gets the blame? The customers did everything they could to avoid it, but the vendors either provided inappropriate training and support, or simply a poor quality product.

Frankly, I do not think that an ERP implementation failure can possibly happen without at least some contribution from the customer. As a customer, no matter what the vendor does to influence you during the selection process, the final decision is yours and you have to make sure you make the right one.

Here’s a list of things a customer should consider before selecting an ERP—both during the implementation and even long after. I have selected 13, because ERP selection and implementation has nothing to do with luck.

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I received an e-mail notice today about Cofundos, a “community innovation & funding” site, which launched last week. Cofundos looks like one possible solution to an often murky area in the open source software space: how to continue fueling development.

Suppose you find some open source software useful but it doesn’t have commercial backing devoting regular developers (for example, Red Hat or Compiere) to its well-being, and suppose you don’t want to employ developers internally to improve, fix, or modify it, then no matter its utility, a lot of people or companies might be wary about relying on it in any larger-scale sense–who can they go to if they have a problem? Read the rest of this entry »