IT has become such an entrenched aspect of modern business that, in some countries, corporate governance bodies seek to make it a mandatory item on the executive board's agenda. The logic is that since IT is now essential for organizations, the board should be responsible for ensuring information assets are managed effectively and that the strategic importance of IT is not overlooked.

While this is a step in the right direction for today's business, a costly trend of losing value on technology investments continues to drain the resources of many African companies.

"When executives invest large amounts in capital equipment they are usually insistent that the equipment is used optimally and people are properly trained and kept up-to-date," explains Phil Duff, CEO of global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software provider, SYSPRO.

"However, when it comes to enterprise software, that drive is typically not applied with the same vigour. It seems that continual training on IT-related aspects is not often company policy in many businesses – people are supposed to "get it", absorbing knowledge and expertise by osmosis, usually from others. This approach commonly leads to the growth of poor practices and results in expensive, albeit unnecessary, re-buys or re-implementations."

The process works like this: when a business system or software project starts, people are often keen and involved and significant budgets and resource are committed. There's general excitement around what this deployment will mean to the bottom line. But not long after implementation, for a myriad of reasons, those ideals and attitudes begin to diminish.

Staff turnover, forgotten rarely-used functions, business changes that occur so slowly that systems drift away from the needs of the organization. There are many factors that play a role in this steady loss of value.

So what can be done to minimize or eliminate the costs associated with application erosion?

"In our business we find that when companies compile their shopping list for a brand new enterprise system, a large percentage of the required functions are pre-existing in their old system. A similar proportion of the required functions are available in the existing system but were never implemented," says Duff.

It is for this reason that experts suggest that training is the key to retaining the value of software investments.

"The biggest source of application erosion is people. But when we get right down to it - it probably needs only 1-2 days training per year per person for a typical user to keep up-to-date and proficient on a particular area of an ERP system. Formal training for new users and retraining for existing users may seem expensive but the long-term benefits far outweigh the spend," Duff explains.

Another worthwhile option is to use a person or a group of people to prevent the potential disconnect that can occur in a software implementation. They can bridge the gap between the software supplier and/or implementer, and the organization, thereby reducing costs, optimizing ROI and giving the organization greater control over its own destiny.

Like so many IT projects, success or failure depends more on people issues than technical ones.

"Getting value from an ERP system is never going to be one of those activities that can be left to proceed automatically. In order to keep erosion from occurring, continual intervention is required. It has to be the collective responsibility of individuals and groups within the organization to ensure that your software solution remains relevant and valuable," Duff concludes.