Can ERP vendors save the world?

Enterprise resource planning software vendors have the tools---if used correctly---to make a huge impact on sustainability efforts and possibly even save us from global warming. Talk about total cost of ownership. 

OK, now stop laughing. Vinnie Mirchandani at Deal Architect has a modest proposal for ERP vendors: 

Here’s a plea to ERP vendors. Focus on the plants, the refineries, the supply chains in your customers. You have plenty of MRP, plant maintenance, health and safety, transportation management licenses out there. Work more actively with your technology partners which provide control systems, sensors, scrubbers.

Get out of your white collar comfort zone. The big opportunities are far away from headquarters. Even the data center is a very small percent of the carbon footprint. Focus on your customer utilities, planes, factories, buses. Get to the root causes. And don’t just report. Help reverse. 

Mirchandani, who lives in ERP land since he blogs about the vendor and negotiates contracts, is looking for something beyond the process mumbo jumbo, maintenance go round and rough (ok partially made up) ROI calculations that these software types dish out daily. 

The idea isn't as crazy as it sounds. ERP vendors have years of experience inside various industries. They know your processes. They theoretically have the skill sets to work in sustainability as an operations tool. And there's a payoff for ERP giants like SAP and Oracle: If saving the world is a deliverable perhaps customers won't notice the maintenance fee hikes as much. The big question: Will ERP vendors follow through?