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Technology Stocks : Newbridge Networks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WTSherman who wrote (11707)	6/2/1999 11:06:00 AM
From: Rob Riordan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18016

WTS - I could be wrong, but I thought the decision to deploy SAP was made before these problems came to light. RER

To: WTSherman who wrote (11707)	6/2/1999 11:14:00 AM
From: S. Peterkin	Respond to of 18016

Good Morning WT! Good points with regard to SAP. Having had many indirect exposures to this software I will admit I had similar thoughts. However, it is my understanding that the crew working on this problem already has the correct level of experience with SAP to make a good transition. I'm willing to be upbeat on this event - and - plan to hold long though the conversion time period. Thanks for your comment. Looking forward to more of your thoughts on NN. Cheers Scott

To: WTSherman who wrote (11707)	6/2/1999 11:15:00 AM
From: Ian@SI	Respond to of 18016

I have been involved with many SAP installations and can testify that they almost always take longer to implement, cost hugely more to implement and result in severe disruptions during the initial months of operations. If NN is doing a crash SAP deployment they are living in fantasy land if they think that is going to help straighten things out. Maybe in 18 months it will help or two years...but, not this year. That's when naive staff at companies that are not advanced on the path to world class quality mistakenly believe that they can fix all their problems just by buying a software fix that has helped their peers and competitors get a competitive advantage. listen to the replay of the call if you haven't already. Alan's comments show that he's far from naive about a SAP implementation. e.g. - one of the statements that was made was (my paraphrasing) "NN has already implemented the business processes that SAP would require." i.e. - it seems reasonably clear that much of the business process reengineering has been completed and that SAP will be introduced to automate as much of the information flows and management as possible. When the most senior officers show this much understanding of the operational requirements, I get quite enthusiastic about the prospects for my investment. FWIW, Ian.