Plain words
The words in our stories, explained
We write for everyone who builds, runs, fixes or pays for the software that runs companies, and for anyone who wants to follow the money. When a story needs one of these words, it explains it in the sentence. This page is the long version.
- ERP
- Enterprise resource planning: the software a company runs its business on. Orders, stock, invoices, payroll, accounts, all in one system. SAP, Oracle, Workday and Microsoft are the big makers.
- SAP, S/4HANA, ECC
- SAP is the largest maker of ERP software. S/4HANA is its current system. ECC is the older SAP system many companies still run; SAP ends standard support for it in 2027, which is why so many companies are replacing it now.
- ERP programme
- The project to replace or upgrade a company's ERP. It usually runs for years, costs tens to hundreds of millions, and involves the software maker, an outside consultancy and the company's own staff.
- Greenfield and brownfield
- Two ways to move to a new ERP. Greenfield: build the new system from a clean start and redesign how the company works. Brownfield: upgrade the existing system and keep most of what is there. Greenfield costs more and takes longer; brownfield keeps old problems.
- Go-live
- The day the new system switches on and the old one switches off. Most of the failures in the Failure File happened in the months after go-live.
- Hypercare
- The weeks after go-live when extra people stand by to fix what breaks. When a company says a problem will be fixed in hypercare, it means the problem is known before go-live.
- Steering committee
- The small group of executives who oversee an ERP programme, approve its budget and decide whether it continues. The brief is written for them and for the people who prepare their papers.
- Systems integrator
- The outside consultancy hired to build and roll out the system: Accenture, Deloitte, Capgemini, IBM, Infosys and others. In a failed programme, the company and the integrator usually blame each other, sometimes in court.
- Licence, subscription, audit
- How the software is paid for. A licence is bought once and maintained for a yearly fee. A subscription (cloud) is rented per user per year. An audit is the maker checking whether a company uses more than it paid for; the bill that follows is often large.
- Cloud and on-premise
- Where the software runs. On-premise: on the company's own computers. Cloud: on the maker's computers, rented. The big makers now push cloud, because subscriptions pay every year.
- AI agent
- A piece of software that does a task on its own inside another system, for example matching a payment to an invoice or answering a supplier. Every big software maker now sells them; the question in our stories is what they cost and who is accountable when they get it wrong.
- Migration
- Moving a company's data and processes from the old system to the new one. The step where most programmes discover that the old data was worse than anyone admitted.
- Impressions
- How many times a post was shown on LinkedIn. Not readers, not clicks. We report them because they are the only reach number LinkedIn gives.
- Sourced
- Every figure and claim in our stories is taken from a named outlet, court filing, regulator or company statement, and the link is in the first comment under the post. We do not add findings of our own.