Continuing great job on the discussions. Keep up the good work. You raised most of the important points but let me summarize my view.
Q1: SAP is a world class ERP system provider. If you are an SAP customer – what would you expect them to provide to support your company’s internal controls?
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Q2: The ERP systems market is very competitive. What should SAP and other ERP systems providers be focusing on to make their systems more competitive in the future?
Some good, thoughtful answers and comments. Here is summary of your responses:
| Category | Q1 | Q2 | Grand Total |
| Mobility | 7 | 7 | |
| User Friendly | 1 | 13 | 14 |
| Simplicity | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Training | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| Impl Cost | 2 | 6 | 8 |
| Customer Focus | 2 | 8 | 10 |
| Security | 3 | 5 | 8 |
| Flexible / Custom | 2 | 13 | 15 |
| Decision Making | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Functionality | 10 | 6 | 16 |
| Interfaces | 2 | 2 | |
| Change Mgmt | 7 | 7 | |
| Scalable | 2 | 2 |
Q3: When is the cost of implementing a compliance control higher than the benefit obtained? What should an organization do to ensure efficiency and profitability?
This can be a real issue. Many good comments about using standardization to drive down costs – effective mechanism but sometimes hard to do. In the end solid analysis of the risk and costs to implement need to be done and a business related (not IT or controls) decision needs to be made.
Q4: What is best focus, most effort to ensure controls are adequate? What factors about an organization would drive this answer?
You rightly pointed out that the regulations and laws that a business is responsible for drives the high priority control focus. This often is a critical requirement for being in business. You also need to understand and focus on those risks that can negatively impact the value of your business.
In the end – high quality business oriented knowledge and decisions create the most value. Hence why I’m proud to be associated with an MIS program that’s in the school of business (where it belongs).