Comments on: Levis blames SAP for falling profitability

By: Leviemployee

Leviemployee — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:59:16 +0000

This was not an SAP issue. As a current employee of Levi’s, they had many successes with SAP in Asia. Do not blame the CIO or the IT function. We have serious business issues in that company that extend way behind this project. David Bergen quit Levi’s and then all hell broke loose. The major issue was that the IT function (outsourced contractor) made a technical mistake after going live that brought the system down. To blame David Bergen is a mistake. We would have been much worse without a David Bergen.

Deloitte was the integration partner and could have done a better job in ensuring these types of human mistakes do not happen. Our business continues not to want to change the processes and the business leadership is not forcing the change. How this becomes an IT issue is amazing.

All that being said, the system is working fine and we are preparing to continue the project into the new countries.

By: BIG4Guy

BIG4Guy — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 01:23:24 +0000

@SAPMAN
B*S*ting doesn’t help. So, don’t blame the Deloittes or the Capgeminis or the Accentures of the world. Bet, you are one of those people who work for a SAP shop(Levi, et al), one with pre-conceived ideas about Big 4. Our job can be as good as the information provided to us(remember, the cliche “Garbage in Garbage out” - Yeah, that’s how the consulting world works). I would be more interested to know what was Levi’s key stakeholders’committment to the project like.

By: DUNBLAMEBIG3

DUNBLAMEBIG3 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:03:28 +0000

Do not blame the consulting partners for that. I was involved in a good implementation by Deloitte in APD. It was a well-budgeted project. You pay peanuts you get monkeys! The consulting partners’ act on getting the cheap staff are actually being pressurised from the price squeeze from the customers. Howevre, consulting firms should uphold their professionality.

By: SAPMAN

SAPMAN — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:48:49 +0000

It’s a well known fact on the market that Deloitte led the implementation at Levi. I have never seen a successful Deloitte implementation - or any other Big 4 (or 3?) for that matter.

All the Big 3, bring an army of right-out-of-college (and some without college education) kids with zero experience, full of arogance, paying misery salaries and billing them to the customer anywhere from $200 to $500 per hour - I have seen invoices!!

At one project I saw a Cap Gemini employee on his very first project as a “MANAGER”, whose previous job 6 months earlier was a WAITER at PF Changs!!!! and another whose previous job was selling T-Shirts at Planet Hollywood.

This is what customers are paying for!! Then they blame it on SAP. yeah right…

By: Rabih Charara

Rabih Charara — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 05:05:41 +0000

The article says:”The subsequent SAP project in the U.S. may have been rushed.” This is the key to failure:”Haste makes waste.” Inadequate employee training is linked to the rush. Hershey’s rushed its implementation (2.5 years instead of 5 years) and had a spectuclar failure too. Remember it’s people who make or break the system not SAP.

By: SAP Buck

SAP Buck — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:20:33 +0000

It couldn’t be that the business refused to change business processes and tried to get the implementation partner to modify SAP to match the way they did things on the mainframe, could it?

By: Razmataz

Razmataz — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:27:59 +0000

In the information age its not only how but also what you do with the information and that makes or break the organization. Levi’s cannot be an exception.

By: SAP Pro in Naperville

SAP Pro in Naperville — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:19:32 +0000

Hmm, so those companies that have SAP and do well should credit also be crediting SAP for their success? Blaming SAP is a ridiculous excuse on Levi’s part. Thousands of companies use SAP successfully.

Having used Levi’s website to try and order jeans, I find this article amusing. You can’t even order something in size 34×31. And they wonder why the are getting their a***s kicked in the marketplace?

Give it a try yourself:
http://us.levi.com/product/index.jsp?pro…

I contacted them about this several times and got zippo for an adequate response. A blind monkey could do better. I just took my business someplace else.
If Levi’s wants to know why their business is off, I would be happy to tell them. They have taken a great brand and ruined it with their lack of focus on the customer.

This is their REAL problem, not SAP.

By: Joe SAP

Joe SAP — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:24:06 +0000

I’m under the impression that a majority of clothing manufacturers are using SAP. SAP as a solution is not the issue here and most likely the blame should fall on the project managers, business process owners and whoever was brought in to facilitate those teams. Do we know who was the implementation partner/s were?