1. What is a company seeking to achieve when it extensively customizes an ERP system? Are you surprised at what the Sloan Valve Company obtained as a result of its efforts?

2. Given the structure of the company and its processes at the time, what would be the major bottlenecks or issues that make it difficult to develop new products successfully? How can IT help alleviate those issues?

3. The case states that innovation processes worked well until the late 1990s, when it became evident that they were not cutting it anymore. What would be some reasons for this change? Why would ad hoc and informal work before but not anymore?