Follow the money. As far as a business strategy goes, it's rather simplistic, but nonetheless true. Never, more so than at present when manufacturers are under pressure, with the screw being turned inexorably tighter by the major multiple retailers.

Worn out rubber soles and scuffed leather - we've all reached a stage where it's time to fork out for a new pair of shoes, but even though your old ones are a shoddy embarrassment, it can be hard to make the transition into unfamiliarity. Yes, you know that the design of a new shoe will be more up-to-date and that the improved structure will give you more support, but sometimes we get comfortable with second best. Strange as it sounds, the same can often be said of an IT system, so Food Manufacture asked Lawson Software and its customers how best to adapt to a new computer package.

There is one question that everyone should be asking themselves, says Ian Rutherford, head of the SAP division at system integrator CSI. "If you come into work in the morning and find you've had a letter from the Food Standards Agency to say that you've got a problem with one of your products out in the market, would you comfortably walk over to your laptop and push a button or would you go into a blind panic?"