As a current "big expensive system" consultant (not for SAP, completely different company and line of work), I 100% agree. Every single client I've worked with has shown me a network diagram and with a grin asked if they're the most unique company I've ever worked with. The answer is almost always no. There's just not that many unique ways to do things, and it always comes down to two or three very similar processes done by two or three very similar pieces of software done in almost exactly the same way that produces almost exactly the same result.

The only thing that sets "unique" companies apart is a lack of culture, or a negative culture. Like you said, bad processes that could be re-engineered into good processes if only the company was able to be honest with itself. Unfortunately changing people and process is harder than changing technology and vendors, so if something doesn't fit perfect you just throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, throw a fit in the press, and never address that your company culture is so inflexible that no major project involving an outside vendor could ever possibly be a success.

No, they aren't.

> It doesn't fail because of the product; it fails because of the people and politics of the organization.

Essentially all project failure are for that reason. (Including ones where one intermediary step on the route to failure was that the people and politics in the organization ended up selecting a solution that was a poor fit for the problem.)