Dear Bob ... I think you are missing the point [regarding the chances for shrink-wrapped ERP]. Accounts payable has very well some "industry best practice". The emphasis is on "industry". Wal-Mart and EDS might be corporate giants, but they are hardly in the same industry. Where EDS might be in multiple industries, but certainly not in Retail, as Wal-Mart is. However, Wal-Mart and Target or Sears should have mos Dear Bob …I think you are missing the point [regarding the chances for shrink-wrapped ERP].Accounts payable has very well some “industry best practice”. The emphasis is on “industry”. Wal-Mart and EDS might be corporate giants, but they are hardly in the same industry. Where EDS might be in multiple industries, but certainly not in Retail, as Wal-Mart is. However, Wal-Mart and Target or Sears should have mostly the same procedures with a bunch of variants that can be configured. And your local hardware store or kids boutique should benefit from many of the same precesses as well. This is just my experience of many years looking on the business processes of large and not so large corporations. As much as every new customer screamed that they were different, about 85% was the same and the other 15% was split between very suspect and really unique. Rarely were the differences of any relevance to the core business or success. Sometimes they were part of the problems the company had. And small businesses have in the aggregate almost all the same requirements than large one’s. Not every small business needs multi currency billing, but some need it and then they can benefit from currency hedging, etc.If you want to build software for a large enough market, you have to throw in many features. The trick is to quickly be able to customize the things out, that are not needed.Kind regards K Dear K …You’re right on target. I only wish more business consultants and pundits who bandy about phrases like “best practice” were as accurate.It’s like I’ve told more than one client, “Yes, you’re unique – just like every other company.” Which is to say, every company had better be unique in some respect or it’s going to be out of business very, very soon. That doesn’t mean they have nothing to learn from other companies, only that they need to be judicious in choosing what they learn. I don’t, however, think that makes the case for shrink-wrapped ERP. Every case a company makes to do things differently has, I suspect, a ripple effect through the rest of the company, which means the chance of adhering to an industry standard practice is reduced.Nor is that the end of the story. Beyond process definition is the level of process adherance. Some companies stay as flexible as they can; others rigidly adhere to process standards as a way to minimize costs. Which further complicates any ability to simply stick with a shrink-wrapped process design.Still, it’s possible I’m just trying to keep the tide from coming in, and business processes really are turning into commodities. I sure hope not, though, because if they are, the world of business is about to become very, very boring.– Bob ——– Technology Industry