ERP transparency is a leadership duty

The previous PRODVIS article on the S/4HANA debate showed that ERP projects rarely fail because of the software. They fail because of scope, data, organisation, internal capacity and change. Eric Kimberling’s video “What Every Leader Needs to Know About ERP Implementations in 2026” sharpens that message for executives: leadership teams often do not get the full truth about their ERP programme. Kimberling explicitly warns against excessive optimism from software vendors and system integrators.

For mid-market leadership teams, this is not an abstract consulting debate. It is about investment, delivery capability, customer trust, data control and, in extreme cases, responsibility toward owners, banks or investors.

“You need to have governance in place, you need to have controls in place to make sure you're managing those vendors and they're not managing you.”
Eric Kimberling, Third Stage Consulting, in “What Every Leader Needs to Know About ERP Implementations in 2026”.

Protect project truthStatus reports from vendors and system integrators are rarely neutral. A party billing hours reports differently from a party committed only to the company.

Protect differentiationStandardisation is useful. But not every company-specific process is waste. Some data and workflows are competitive advantage.

Protect the business case“Support is ending”, “we need AI” or “everyone is modernising” is not a strategy. Without risk-adjusted value, the project is not healthy.

The transparency problem

Software vendors sell the future. System integrators sell implementation. Both roles are legitimate, but neither is neutral. Kimberling’s point is uncomfortable: vendors and large integrators have their own incentives. They earn money from licences, timelines, change requests, extensions and consulting days. As a result, the picture often becomes more optimistic than the operational reality.

Leadership then carries this polished picture into steering committees, banks, owner meetings, investor communication or employee updates. That is where the risk starts. Not because anyone intends to mislead, but because the organisation eventually believes its own project slide.

Vital Farms: when ERP communication becomes a liability issue

Vital Farms advertising visual with hens, an egg carton and the words Good eggs. No shortcuts. — The brand promise “Good eggs. No shortcuts.” makes the Vital Farms case especially vivid as an ERP lesson: strong brands need especially honest project communication during major system changes.

The Vital Farms case shows how serious ERP transparency can become. According to public reports, a securities class action was filed in March 2026. The allegation: the company and executives presented the status and risks of an ERP rollout too optimistically while operational disruption and consequences for revenue and retail shelf space were already relevant. The allegations have not been proven in court, but the direction is clear: ERP communication can become a capital-market and liability topic. Panorama Consulting describes the case as an example of how an ERP go-live can become a securities case.

Most mid-market companies are not listed. But the logic is the same. If banks, advisory boards, owners, customers or employees are reassured for too long with a status picture that is too green, leadership credibility suffers. At that point, ERP is no longer an IT project.

Five lessons for mid-market leadership teams

Project status is almost never simply green

A major ERP project without material risks does not exist. If status reports stay green for too long, that is not proof of control. It can also mean that the decisive risks are not being reported. Leadership needs an independent, technology-neutral project truth.

Risks never disappear

An empty risk log is not a good sign. It often means risks are not being seen clearly. Every mitigation creates new dependencies. Most risks sit not in the technology, but in people, processes, data, responsibilities and strategy.

Do not modernise away competitive advantage

Cloud standardisation can homogenise processes. That is useful where standard really is standard. It becomes dangerous when a company loses what customers value: delivery capability, speed, quality, industry knowledge or flexible special processes.

Processes and data are intellectual property

Workflows and data rarely appear neatly on the balance sheet. Still, they are company value. Vendor lock-in, API restrictions and overly narrow ecosystems are therefore not technical footnotes, but strategic risks.

No business case, no transformation

“We need to modernise”, “support is ending” or “we need AI” is not enough. ERP needs a risk-adjusted business case: which costs disappear, which errors shrink, which lead times drop, which customer risks are reduced and which data becomes more usable?

The link to the S/4HANA debate

The Computerwoche discussion on SAP S/4HANA showed that transformation obstacles are less about technology and more about scope definition, data clean-up and change management. Computerwoche points to legacy custom code, master-data duplicates and the need for clear prioritisation. Kimberling adds the leadership layer: if vendors and integrators own the project truth, leadership loses control of exactly these topics.

Risk	Leadership question	PRODVIS safeguard
Project status is too green	Who reports independently of licence and consulting revenue?	Independent assessment across scope, data, people and go-live readiness.
Vendor controls the agenda	Do we set priorities ourselves, or follow the vendor path?	Leadership-ready decision logic before system and tool decisions.
IP loss through standardisation	Which special processes are true competitive advantage?	Separate waste, standard process and protected differentiation.
Data and API dependency	Will our data and process logic remain usable?	Architecture with a clean ERP core, interfaces and controlled AI agents.
No measurable value	Which measurable relief appears in 6 to 12 months?	Risk-adjusted business case with must-haves before nice-to-haves.

Why PRODVIS deliberately thinks from the customer side

PRODVIS is now specialised in Exact Online Premium. That is no secret, and it is not a disadvantage. Specialisation creates implementation depth. Strategically, however, PRODVIS represents and protects only the interests of its mid-market customers. If Exact Online Premium fits, we say so. If scope, data, capacity or the business case do not fit, we say that too.

This is why Exact Online Premium with connected AI agents is attractive for many operational mid-market companies: the ERP core remains lean. Company-specific work is not blindly customised into the core, but added through process logic, interfaces and controlled agents. This protects both updateability and differentiation.

Recommendations for the next leadership meeting

Demand an independent second opinion before communicating a green project status externally.
Require a real risk log: people, processes, data, testing, go-live, operations and delivery capability.
Mark the processes and data that are competitive advantage and must not be standardised away.
Check API, data and exit dependencies before signing contracts.
Start only with a risk-adjusted business case that shows operational relief within months.

PRODVIS view

ERP transparency is a leadership duty. Not because executives must make every technical decision, but because only they can hold the balance: use vendors without being led by them. Use standardisation without losing differentiation. Use AI without giving up control over data and processes.

Sources

Expert impulses: Eric Kimberling, “What Every Leader Needs to Know About ERP Implementations in 2026”, YouTube, 6 July 2026; Computerwoche, “SAP S/4HANA-Transformation zwischen Aufbruch und Realität”, 23 July 2026; Panorama Consulting on the Vital Farms ERP case. Business interpretation: Wolf Schumacher, PRODVIS.