1999: $112M SAP project compressed from 48 to 30 months. Go-live before Halloween. Result: supply chain collapse, $150M+ revenue impact, 19% quarterly profit decline, 8% stock drop in a single day. 2002: Same company, same vendor, same kind of system. Realistic timeline, rigorous testing, built-in change management. Result: 20% under budget, ahead of schedule, 99.96% inventory accuracy, order turnaround from 10+ days to 24-48 hours. The only variable: organizational readiness.
124 stores opened in 9 months. Data accuracy: 30% (vs. 98-99% at U.S. Target). Shelves with products that couldn’t sell. Empty slots for products in the warehouse. Nobody independently measured data accuracy before go-live. Result: complete market exit, $7B total loss, 681-day operational lifespan. Same technology Walmart Canada used to build a profitable operation over decades.
$383M SAP implementation. Every project dashboard: green, on schedule, on budget. Reality: organization wasn’t ready. Post-go-live: 15,000+ unpaid supplier invoices. Financial close from 4 days to 43 days. $585M cleanup cost. Total cost exceeded $1B. Sued implementation partner Wipro. The New York Public Service Commission found that “status reporting had not surfaced the operational issues.”
As Meridian Steward engagements produce documented outcomes, this page will feature anonymized case studies with quantified readiness improvements, transformation outcomes, and ROI data. In the meantime, the historical evidence base above demonstrates the pattern that every engagement is designed to break.
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