Why 73% of ERP Projects Fail, and What This Means for the Future?

Answering the question: why the digitalization of discrete manufacturing still costs too much, takes too long, and fails to deliver full efficiency?

Discrete manufacturing is digitalizing faster than ever, yet the data paints an alarming picture: 73% of ERP implementations in discrete manufacturing fail to achieve their set objectives, implementation costs exceed planned budgets by an average of 215%, and only 26% of employees actively use the system after deployment.

In this discussion, we will analyze three key pain points that small and medium-sized manufacturing companies face during digitalization: excessive costs, where implementation services, and consulting represent 100–200% of the value of the software itself, overly long implementation cycles, which in discrete manufacturing last on average 14–24 months, and low end-user effectiveness. Based on this, we will answer the question of what kind of ERP system discrete manufacturing actually needs in the future.