ERP Carnage Continues As Orgs Jump In Unprepared
The Register, Thursday, November 13th, 2025
Lack of executive backing, unrealistic plans, and muddled goals remain recipe for failure
In Barcelona this week, consultancy Gartner once again tried to answer one of the perennial questions in IT: what is it about ERP projects that makes them so likely to fail?
The US Air Force, retail giant Lidl, brewer MillerCoors, and cosmetics brand Revlon have all suffered high-profile ERP disasters, but Birmingham City Council, Europe's largest local authority, topped them all by going live with an Oracle system that was not ready, leading to financial crisis and a decision to reimplement the software, taking the total project costs from around 19 million to 170 million UK Pounds.
According to Dixie John, senior director of ERP strategy at Gartner, such projects are inherently complex and a schism often develops between the IT department and other business leaders.