Target Canada: Garbage in, garbage out

Many companies rolling out ERP systems hit snags when it comes to importing data from legacy systems into their shiny new infrastructure. When Target was launching in Canada in 2013, though, they assumed they would avoid this problem: there would be no data to convert, just new information to input into their SAP system.

But upon launch, the company's supply chain collapsed, and investigators quickly tracked the fault down to this supposedly fresh data, which was riddled with errors items were tagged with incorrect dimensions, prices, manufacturers, you name it. Turns out thousands of entries were put into the system by hand by entry-level employees with no experience to help them recognize when they had been given incorrect information from manufacturers, working on crushingly tight deadlines. An investigation found that only about 30 percent of the data in the system was actually correct.

Source:https://www.cio.com/article/278677/enterprise-resource-planning-10-famous-erp-disasters-dustups-and-disappointments.html

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Questions

- Identify the issues the company encountered during the ERP implementation? (2 marks)

- With the waterfall model in mind, in which phase did this project fail? (2 marks) How could this have been prevented? (4 marks)

- What are your three key takeaways from this case? (6 marks)

- Justify if an alternate development method would have been more appropriate. (6 marks)