On a recent visit to Chile, I read Patricia Verdugo's insightful book on a specific trail of murders conducted by the infamous "caravan of death" led by General Sergio Arellano- Stark in the aftermath of the 1973 military coup. Verdugo interviews families of the victims, but even more impressively, interviews military officers themselves who have since felt the need to speak out. Apparently, officers in the northern regions were being criticized by their superiors in Santiago for their relatively peaceful takeover during the coup and for failing to create a reign of terror already prevalent in the rest of the country. Hence, Arellano-Stark arrives in his helicopter with his people, overruling local officers, taking political prisoners and executing them, leaving behind a trail of death. One gathers Pinochet himself sent the general to create fear and to send the message he was in charge. Verdugo documents the murders with paintstaking journalism, but is not afraid to also provide perspective and opinion on this inevitably emotional issue. For readers who seek an even more personal perspective, I'd also recommend Verdugo's Bucarest 187 (I don't know if the book is in translation, however) in which she chronicles the disappearance of her own father in the aftermath of the coup. The two books together allows us insight into the work of an excellent Chilean journalist who maintains a rigorous journalistic ethic of investigating the facts to the best of her ability in what must have been trying times for her personally.

As someone involved in the consulting area for many years, I was unable to find any new idea that would make worthwhile to spend money in this book. Almost everything that is mentioned here can be grabbed from free articles availables in Internet,about this subject. Additionally, there are a good number of books that will help you much more to plan and implement ERP's. Last, but not least, the book only have a handful of small pictures and tables. Unacceptable for a modern book about business and technology topics.

This book provides a high-level overview of many of the issues surrounding an ERP implementation. However, the coverage is superficial and repetitive. I think a 10-page summary of this material would be much more useful than this 200-page book. Often I felt like the book was more of an advertisement for a consulting company than a serious treatment of the issues involved in implementing an ERP system. Still, it may help one who is inexperienced in this area to know some of the important questions to ask before and during the implementation.

This book is a good overview of all of the issues related to the selection and implementation of enterprise systems. I have purchased several copies of the book and distributed them to potential clients. I use the book as a gift during my seminars.

The book, however, does not go into a lot of details on such critical issues such as change management and business case development for the project.

This is a good introduction book and is an easy read. I recommend it for readers who want to understand the issues of ERP at a high level.