ERP Project Put To Sleep

ERP implementations are not immune to the economic slowdown as this week the Minneapolis based Select Comfort prematurely ended its SAP rollout. The company that makes the “Sleep Number” bed had been implementing SAP’s ERP, Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offerings. The SAP project started back in 2006 but had its critics including a major investment group, Clinton Group, who had publically criticized the project as over budget and behind schedule.

Although many ERP projects have problems, the Clinton Group had continued to press the company about poor project management. Their issues with Select Comfort included the use of internal resources for the SAP implementation and spending $20 million in two years of the project. With the termination of the SAP project and the laying off 120 employees, about 22% of its workforce, Select Comfort hopes to see a saving of $15 annually.