Before Your Implementation Fails: Early Warning Signs Your ERP Project Needs a Reset

Your ERP implementation is underway, but warning signs are creeping in. If this is how you feel, you’re not alone – according to a 2023 Gartner benchmark, 75% of ERP projects for organizations like yours fail to meet their objectives.  You have sat through the status meetings, read the vendor updates, and even heard statements like, “We’re just a little behind, but we’re close.”

The danger isn’t a sudden project failure, but a slow unraveling: inconsistent business processes, conflicting reports and KPIs, and changes introduced with little notice or context. As confusion spreads and questions like “Why are we doing this?” go unanswered, your ERP project quietly drifts off track. Training becomes generic or minimal, and internal pushbacks grow. It's easy to overlook how the effects of poor management can gradually unfold, often right in front of us.

The warning signs of your project being in trouble are real. Waiting for things to “work themselves out” is often how good companies end up in painful, expensive rescues.

This is the blog you didn’t know you needed—we’ll walk you through the early warning signs that your ERP implementation is in trouble, before it becomes a boardroom crisis. Backed by practical examples and battle-tested insights, this is your field guide to taking control.

No sugarcoating. Just practical insight to help you course-correct.

1. ERP Deadlines Keep Slipping Due to Internal Misalignment

The first warning sign: your project plans are stuck in a perpetual “Ongoing” state, with deadlines slipping and milestones remaining vague. Teams offer uncertain updates like “We’re working on it”, but lack the clarity needed to move forward. This ambiguity often stems not from vendor delays, but from internal disorganization: unclear ownership, unaligned processes, and decisions made without the full context.

Here's an example: Hershey’s launched SAP, Siebel, and Manugistics simultaneously during their busiest season—Halloween. The result? A $100 million backlog in unprocessed orders and a $112 million ERP failure. The issue wasn’t the software—it was poor planning, rushed timelines, and a lack of readiness checkpoints.

DCG’s Approach:  

We bring structure and alignment to ERP programs by starting with clarity. Clarity of roles, priorities, and decision-making authority. Using our SPEAR methodology, we assess organizational readiness before major milestones are set. The first stage in our approach, the “Surveillance” phase, surfaces internal misalignments early, allowing us to realign stakeholders, define ownership, and establish realistic timelines grounded in operational capacity, not just executive ambition.

Through facilitated workshops and structured planning, we help clients move from vague commitments to concrete, cross-functional plans. This results in a project rhythm that’s predictable, accountable, and built to succeed.

2. Your ERP System Is Too Generic for How You Actually Do Business

Starting a project with an “out-of-the-box” mindset is the beginning of a bad implementation. ERP systems come with a set of standard processes, but your business likely doesn’t run in a standard way. If you find yourself constantly re-explaining how things really work internally, that’s a sign your system is being shaped without your operational reality at the center.

The truth is, no vendor can understand your business better than you do. It’s up to you to define and defend the processes that make your company successful—your secret sauce. Without this clarity, early missteps lead to costly workarounds and a system that doesn’t fit.

Consider the case of German retailer Lidl, whose SAP rollout failed after seven years and over €500M invested. Why? Because they tried to adapt to a system that didn’t reflect their unique practices, rather than shaping the system to fit their needs.

DCG’s Approach:

We start with a business-first discovery, helping clients articulate their real operational models, not just defaulting to standard ERP templates. Using SPEAR, we surface misalignments between how you work and how the system expects you to work—early—so your ERP investment supports your business, not the other way around.

3. Cross-Department Tension and System Misalignment

ERP implementations often falter not because of technology, but because of organizational silos. When departments operate independently—without shared goals, communication, or understanding—systems are built in isolation. The results are directly correlated to misalignment, friction, and a system no one fully trusts or adopts.

A US utility giant suffered payroll chaos when their HR, IT, and operations weren’t aligned during go-live, resulting in a massive $585M disaster. Employees didn’t get paid, and vendors weren’t invoiced for months. This wasn’t a software issue, it was a failure of coordination and communication.

Telltale warning signs include complaints from departments saying “This won’t work for us” or “We weren’t consulted on this decision.” These reflect deeper issues: lack of cross-functional readiness, unclear roles, and missing buy-in. Left unchecked, they result in workarounds, misconfigured processes, and long-term system distrust.

DCG’s Approach:

We break down silos by building alignment from the ground up—before miscommunication turns into misconfiguration. Through our SPEAR methodology, we bring stakeholders together to map out how each function operates and interacts. We establish shared KPIs, clarify ownership, and resolve conflicting requirements early. Instead of surface-level coordination, we build deep alignment, so every department understands how the ERP will serve them, and how their choices impact others.

4. Poor Data Quality or Migration Issues

Insufficient data can turn an otherwise “successful” go-live into a disaster. Incomplete, outdated, or misaligned master data will corrupt transactions, confuse users, and kill trust in the new system.  

An example is Target’s Canadian expansion in 2015, which largely imploded due to a failed ERP rollout. During migration, inaccurate inventory data and faulty item setup led to empty shelves, overstocked warehouses, and $2 billion in losses.

DCG’s Approach:

Through structured layers within the SPEAR process, we address data challenges early to uncover quality issues, ownership gaps, and legacy system risks even before migration starts. By aligning business and technical teams on what data truly matters, we ensure only clean, validated, and relevant information moves into the new system—building trust, reducing rework, and laying the foundation for a smooth, reliable go-live.

5. No One Owns Change Management—And Everyone Pays the Price

Skipping change management is the fastest way to project failure. Without proper training, communication, and process adoption, teams struggle to use the system effectively. You start to see the signs: limited user involvement, a lack of test scripts with real metrics, and no clear plan for cutover or post–go-live support.

But here’s the truth: change management isn’t just your job—it’s a shared responsibility. As the client, you need to commit to involvement, feedback, and process clarity. But your implementation partner must go further than just talking about change. They need to document it—every decision, every business process, every expectation of how work will be done in the future.

When that shared effort breaks down, the cost is high. Just look at MillerCoors. They pushed forward with a unification effort but neglected user adoption. Field teams resisted the new system, business processes collapsed, and the company faced a $100M ERP setback.

DCG’s Approach: Change Management Built into Delivery with SPEAR

At DCG, we don’t treat change management as an afterthought. Through the SPEAR framework, we integrate stakeholder engagement, training, and readiness directly into delivery. We capture every process and decision in writing, simulate adoption early, and validate buy-in at each phase. Because when everyone owns the change—and it’s documented clearly—real transformation takes root.

6. Leadership Is Losing Confidence

The early excitement around your ERP initiative is fading and now the C-suite is asking tougher questions. What seemed like strong progress is now met with skepticism, as updates feel vague and results remain elusive. This shift from support to scrutiny is a critical warning sign.

Something similar happened in Waste Management’s $100M lawsuit against SAP for delivering a faulty ERP system. Leadership realized too late that the system was mismatched to their needs. After investing millions and trusting surface-level updates, it resulted in lawsuits, reputational damage, and no return on investment.

When leadership is kept in the dark or fed overly optimistic reports, trust erodes and recovery becomes exponentially harder.

DCG’s Approach:

We restore executive confidence by making project progress visible, measurable, and real. Through SPEAR, we introduce radical transparency from day one by surfacing actual risks, missed dependencies, team readiness gaps, and true project velocity. Instead of relying on filtered updates, we provide data-backed insights that help leaders make informed decisions early, course-correct fast, and avoid surprises that surface only when it’s too late.

It’s Not Too Late, Turn Today’s Warnings into Tomorrow’s Wins

ERP projects don’t fix themselves; leaders do. You don’t have to wait until a vendor fails you or another go-live collapses. Timely intervention differentiates between a salvageable project and a complete ERP failure. We’re here to help you make the right changes at the right time.

You don’t need a new ERP system. You need a new level of clarity, alignment, and control. At DCG, our SPEAR Framework is built to deliver structured recovery, no matter how messy your implementation is. We work alongside executives, VPs, and project managers to realign strategy, reset timelines, and restore project credibility before things worsen.

With years of ERP recovery experience, we guide leaders like you out of the fog and rescue ERP investments before it’s too late. Schedule a meeting to see how we can help.