Nightmare before Christmas: what happened when Santa didn’t use an ERP?

In this cautionary Christmas tale, we’ll see how Santa’s workshop would come to a standstill when he tried to do everything manually. Here are just some of the nightmares he experienced...

The weather outside is frightful – and the production planning is even worse!

Bottlenecks in one part of the workshop, and elves sitting around eating chocolates in another part. If only Santa could keep up with his production planning! Relying on spreadsheets alone to manage production means that his resources – elves and machinery – could be over- or under-capacity. 

An ERP like Ridder IQ would make production planning as easy as (mince) pie for Santa. Materials, orders, projects, and capacity can all be tracked in real-time, allowing the team to continually optimise the schedule based on demand. 

Santa should know how to keep Christmas costs in check after centuries of trading, but without an ERP to manage his costs, his margins are more squeezed than ever. 

Orders for Lego and Pokemon toys have shot up, but the elves don’t have enough materials to keep up with demand. They’re having to put in last-minute orders with their suppliers, which means North Pole HQ has been hit with a sackful of unexpected costs. 

An ERP could have prevented this. With access to real-time data and forecasting, Santa can plan for spikes in demand avoiding both surplus materials/stock, and shortages. 

Santa can usually keep up with the changing habits of children all over the world. After all, he’s the one who built all those Furbies back in the ‘90s. 

So why can’t he manage his supply chain properly this year? Because without an ERP, he has no real-time view of orders or inventory. His stock levels are all over the place, his BOMs are out of date, and he can’t see which supplier delays are about to derail production.

This year, it’s VR headsets – the elves have run out of chips, but nobody has ordered more. What’s more, they’re in high demand so getting a delivery before Christmas isn’t guaranteed. Even if they arrive on time, a rushed order means paying a premium. Santa might be able to ride a magic sleigh, but he can’t predict the future. An ERP will get him close though, with deep insights that allow him to proactively secure deals with his suppliers.

Santa has billions of Christmas lists to keep track of, and finding out who’s been naughty or nice is an administrative headache. 

In an ideal world he’d manage everything with his ERP’s document management system. But he’s stuck with hard copies and messy spreadsheets. He can’t track any changes the elves have made or view the latest version of a document. Surely children in 2025 aren’t asking for Tamagotchis!

The last thing Santa wants after a busy December is managing the returns in January. Defective toys not only leave children disappointed, they’re also a real headache for the team. An ERP could solve this problem with automated checks and inspections, real-time machine checks, and alerts to flag up potential defects. Any issues are identified and isolated before the item leaves the workshop, reducing costly returns. It also allows Santa to keep a reliable record of checks and inspections, so problems can be quickly traced back to the source. 

In short, without an ERP to manage production, Santa is truly snowed under. He can’t help but think:

Make my wish come true – all I want for Christmas is Ridder IQ!