Six subsidiaries. Six ways of quoting, selling, servicing, invoicing. Six local truths, each defended by people who built them. My job: one system, one process landscape, no casualties. Here is what that actually takes.
Processes first, system second
The tool is the easy part. Before a single field was configured, we mapped how each company actually worked — not how the org chart claimed. Half of 'IT harmonisation' is diplomatic archaeology: finding out why a subsidiary invoices the way it does, and which exceptions are law, habit, or myth.The 80% rule
We standardised where businesses were genuinely the same — roughly 80% — and deliberately allowed local variation where markets truly differ. Forcing the last 20% is where harmonisation projects die: you spend half the budget breaking things that were never broken.Adoption is the product
Go-live is not the finish line, it is the starting gun. We measured success in usage: are quotes really created in the system, or in Excel with a copy-paste at the end? Every workaround is user feedback in disguise. Read it, do not fight it.One system is never one system — it is one agreement, renewed daily, between people who used to work differently. Configure the agreement, and the software follows.