The whole of the western business world has been blighted with CRM and ERP projects which have delivered limited or no business benefits. There even some that have killed companies. Nucleus Research has built a business around looking at the ROI (Return on Investment) delivered by software packages. Sounds like a great job, but it must be soul-destroying because most of the stories they hear are of failed projects and squandered benefits.

I was with a Research Director from Gartner last week who specialises in CRM. He was saying that when clients ask for advice they are looking for ways of getting the cost savings and productivity gains from their existing implementations which they were promised but never materialised.

When I started to talk about how many of our clients had used a process-focused approach for implementing software applications with incredible results - such as halving the implementation time - he became very animated. This is not only because the software is configured dramatically faster, but because the business transformation of the workforce was achieved far more quickly and effectively.

We got to the end and he sat back and said, "Very interesting, you should write a book about what you've told me." Every author waits a lifetime to hear that line. I proudly reached into my briefcase and produced my recent book "Common Approach, Uncommon Results" that devotes a chapter to the successful implementation of software packages.

That approach is echoed in a very compelling White Paper by the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business called "The Return of Enterprise Solutions - The Director's Cut".

The argument of the paper was that most films are better second time around once the Director has had a chance to recut them with complete artistic control and no time pressures. The authors argue, supported by research, that is very similar to many organisations are now revisiting their enterprise (ERP & CRM) implementations looking for the benefits they never received first time around. Their Director's Cut will give them the results.

This work focuses on the business transformation (business change) work that the original implementation didn't deliver. Why? Normally because the last thing in the plan was business transformation, and project ran out of time or budget. Now we can all only stand back, open mouthed at this stupidity. Wasn't business transformation the whole point of the original project? But what happened was the enormity of the task configuring and integrating the software overshadowed everything else.

It is not theory, it is proven in clients in a wide range of industries. Clients are getting staggering results - a 10,000 person utility implementing SAP in 4 months, a multi-national implementing SAP & Siebel across 40 countries in 18 months, when the original estimate from the SI partner was 36 months.