Feral Systems: The Likely Effects on Business Analytics Functions in an Enterprise Resource Planning System Environment

This paper looks at a case study of an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) implementation in a geographically dispersed utility company and the approach by middle management to several problems perceived by them to be problematic. Their approach was to develop systems outside the implemented ERP. These are referred to as feral systems and the implication of these in terms of effective business analytics (BA) are discussed. The paper contends that despite the extremely effective databases and sophisticated modules for business analytic functions within most ERP’s, middle managers are still in the “just in case of an incident” mode of inventory management and data entered in their own feral systems may be significantly different to the inventory levels recorded in the main ERP. The implications to accurate forecasts from BA modules are also discussed.