It's a mix, I've lead many enterprise implementations, erp, crm, etc. It's not just the implementors, it's all of the above, from the lack of the customer even being able to communicate the business needs.
It'd be lovely if you were right, because the problem is then fixable, but you can take the most motivated, best team of SMEs into a project, and be unsuccessful given the client.
It's all a mess trying to get things done, and every single company is different. Going onsite that first few weeks is an exploration into in what exact ways the mess is going to manifest itself, and how we're going to fight our way through it.
I agree. To clarify, I'd like to believe any client in the position to spend money on an ERP size solution (including payroll) has earned the right to do so - be they got large enough to have a problem by luck, manually inefficient processes, outgrowing existing systems, etc.
There is still a responsibility in my mind on the implementors part to be experts who can assess the maturity in place at a clients operation, as well as the degree and potential depth of unknowns, as well as their bench's ability to be experts of closing the unknown.
Too often, implementors are focused on landing clients, more than passing on work beyond their pay scale due to trivializing or outright ignoring things.
Every single company is totally different - a desire for implementors to want to templatize as much as they can may be part of the issue.
I'm being a bit harsh on implementors despite being one, I think it boils down to if you don't understand a business in detail, including it's data, before beginning, one should probably not touch it, whether its a client or the other side.
It'd be lovely if you were right, because the problem is then fixable, but you can take the most motivated, best team of SMEs into a project, and be unsuccessful given the client.
It's all a mess trying to get things done, and every single company is different. Going onsite that first few weeks is an exploration into in what exact ways the mess is going to manifest itself, and how we're going to fight our way through it.