Few IT-related subjects have inspired stronger feelings over the past few years than enterprise resource planning systems, more often known by the acronym ERP. These large, off-the-shelf software packages promised to replace complex legacy problems with a well-integrated and modern application infrastructure. In many ways, this promise was always too grand, and savvy businesspeople should have known better. But the idea that there was a single way of solving so many of your problems proved seductive, leading many companies down the ERP path.