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Enterprise
Enterprise resource planning resource
An integrative review planning
E.M. Shehab, M.W. Sharp, L. Supramaniam and T.A. Spedding
Medway School of Engineering, University of Greenwich, Chatham Maritime, UK 359
Keywords Manufacturing resource planning, Literature, Critical success factors
Abstract Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system solutions are currently in high demand by
both manufacturing and service organisations because they provide a tightly integrated solution to
an organisation’s information system needs. During the last decade, ERP systems have received a
significant amount of attention from researchers and practitioners from a variety of functional
disciplines. In this paper, a comprehensive review of the research literature (1990-2003)
concerning ERP systems is presented. The literature is further classified and the major outcomes
of each study are addressed and analysed. Following a comprehensive review of the literature,
proposals for future research are formulated to identify topics where fruitful opportunities exist.

1. Introduction
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a business management system that
comprises integrated sets of comprehensive software, which can be used, when
successfully implemented, to manage and integrate all the business functions within an
organisation. These sets usually include a set of mature business applications and tools
for financial and cost accounting, sales and distribution, materials management,
human resource, production planning and computer integrated manufacturing, supply
chain, and customer information (Boykin, 2001; Chen, 2001; Yen et al., 2002). These
packages have the ability to facilitate the flow of information between all supply chain
processes (internal and external) in an organisation (Al-Mashari and Zairi, 2000a).
Furthermore, an ERP system can be used as a tool to help improve the performance
level of a supply chain network by helping to reduce cycle times (Gardiner et al., 2002).
However, it has traditionally been applied in capital-intensive industries such as
manufacturing, construction, aerospace and defence. Recently, ERP systems have been
expanded beyond manufacturing and introduced to the finance, health care, hotel
chains, education, insurance, retail and telecommunications sectors.
ERP is now considered to be the price of entry for running a business, and at least at
present, for being connected to other enterprises in a network economy to create
“business to business” electronic commerce (Boykin, 2001). Furthermore, many
multinationals restrict their business to only those companies that operate the same
ERP software as the multinational firm. It is a fact that ERP is for big firms and smaller
firms have to adjust their business model and approach according to the practices and
software adopted by the big firms. With the opening up of the economy, small to
medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have found the going very difficult. Since they do not
have the robustness associated with large companies, SMEs have to tap the power of
IT and an integrated information system to stay competitive and customer oriented. Business Process Management
ERP is often considered the answer for their survival (Rao, 2000). Therefore, the ERP Journal
Vol. 10 No. 4, 2004
software market has become one of today’s largest IT investments worldwide. A recent pp. 359-386
survey predicts that the spending on ERP will reach $66 billion in 2003[1] q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-7154
(Themistocleous et al., 2001). It continues to be one of the largest, fastest-growing and DOI 10.1108/14637150410548056
BPMJ most influential players in the application software industry in the next decade (Adam
10,4 and O’doherty, 2000; Yen et al., 2002). There are several reasons why a continued
growth of ERP projects is to be expected (Stensrud, 2001):
.
The ERP vendors are continuously expanding the capabilities of their packages
by adding functionality for new business functions such as sales force
automation, supply-chain, order management, data warehousing, maintenance-
360 repair-and-overhaul, etc.
.
The ERP vendors are transitioning to Web-based applications. This may lead to
faster flow of information in the logistics chain, and therefore, many ERP
customers will require these Web-based ERP systems.
.
The emergence of e-commerce will also increase the demand for Web-based ERP
systems.
.
The share of ERP systems in certain geographical markets such as the former
Eastern Bloc, Asia and South America is not widespread.
ERP packages touch many aspects of a company’s internal and external operations.
Consequently, successful deployment and use of ERP systems are critical to
organizational performance and survival (Markus et al., 2000b). Potential benefits
include drastic declines in inventory, breakthrough reductions in working capital,
abundant information about customer wants and needs, along with the ability to view
and manage the extended enterprise of suppliers, alliances and customers as an
integrated whole (Chen, 2001). In the manufacturing sector, ERP implementation has
reduced inventories anywhere from 15 to 35 per cent (Gupta, 2000). Among the most
important attributes of ERP (Nah et al., 2001; Soh et al., 2000) are its abilities to:
.
automate and integrate business processes across organizational functions and
locations;
.
enable implementation of all variations of best business practices with a view
towards enhancing productivity;
.
share common data and practices across the entire enterprise in order to reduce
errors; and
. produce and access information in a real-time environment to facilitate rapid and
better decisions and cost reductions.
ERP packages are attracting increasing attention from both academic and industrial
communities. No comprehensive review has been carried out on the development and
implementation of ERP. A review of the recent development of ERP is needed to make
decisions concerning ERP selection and implementation and to aid in guiding more
research. The objective of this paper is to present an integrative review of ERP systems
and to identify areas where further research is needed. A total of 76 citations on ERP
systems were reviewed. Table I provides the sources. The majority of the citations
were found in journals (72 per cent), while proceedings, conferences and others
contributed to the remainder (28 per cent). Three journals, Business Process Management
Journal, Journal of Information Technology and Communications of the ACM, accounted
for 48 per cent of the citations.
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, an overview of ERP
systems is presented. The ERP evolution is outlined in Section 3. Section 4 considers
Source No. of citations Enterprise
resource
Books on ERP systems 5
planning
Conference papers
Information Systems (International Conference): Proceedings 20th 1
Information Systems (International Conference): Proceedings 21st 1
Information Systems (Americas Conference): Proceedings 5th 1 361
IEEE (Management Innovation and Technology: International Conference):
Proceedings 2000 1
Management of Data (International Conference): Proceedings of the ACM 1
Systems Thinking in Management (International Conference) 1
Software Reusability (5th Symposium): Proceedings 1
Manufacturing Research (National Conference): Proceedings 16th 1
Journal papers
Automation in Construction 1
Business Horizons 1
Business Process Management Journal 10
Communications of the ACM 8
Computer Standards and Interfaces 1
Computers in Industry 1
Data & Knowledge Engineering 1
Datamation 1
European Journal of Information Systems 1
European Journal of Operational Research 1
Expert Systems with Applications 1
Harvard Business Review 1
IEEE Software 1
Industrial Management & Data Systems 4
Industrial Marketing Management 1
Information and Management 1
Information and Software Technology 1
Information Systems Management 2
International Journal of Agile Management Systems 1
International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 1
International Journal of Production Economics 2
International Journal of Production Research 1
ISA Transactions 1
Journal of Information Technology 8
Journal of Information Technology: Cases and Applications 1
Logistics Information Management 1
Management Decision 1 Table I.
Web sources 8 Summary of journals
Total 76 reviewed on ERP systems

the major vendors of ERP systems and the main drawbacks of these systems. The
criteria for selecting an ERP system are addressed in Section 5. Implementation of an
ERP system is an extensive, lengthy and costly process, typically measured in millions
of dollars. The investment is in both software itself and in related services such as
consulting, training and system integration. Therefore, the various implementation
approaches and the factors influencing the implementation process are presented in
BPMJ Section 6. Finally, conclusions and the implication for future research are explored in
10,4 Section 7.

2. ERP: an overview
ERP allows companies to integrate various departmental information. It has evolved
362 from a human resource management application to a tool that spans IT management.
For many users, an ERP is a “do it all” system that performs everything from entry of
sales orders to customer service. It attempts to integrate the suppliers and customers
with the manufacturing environment of the organisation. For example, a purchase
entered in the order module passes the order to a manufacturing application, which in
turn sends a materials request to the supply-chain module, which gets the necessary
parts from suppliers and uses a logistics module to get them to the factory. At the same
time the purchase transaction shows in general – a ledger module as revenue. The
traditional application systems, which organisations generally employ, treat each
transaction separately. They are built around the strong boundaries of specific
functions that a specific application is meant to cater for. ERP stops treating these
transactions separately as stand alone activities and considers them to be a part of
interlinked processes that make up the business (Gupta, 2000).
An overview of ERP systems including some of the most popular functions within
each module is shown in Figure 1. However, the names and numbers of modules in an
ERP system provided by various software vendors may differ. A typical system
integrates all these functions by allowing its modules to share and transfer information
by freely centralising information in a single database accessible by all modules (Chen,
2001).
The various modules of ERP include engineering data control (bill of materials,
process plan and work centre data); sales, purchase and inventory (sales and
distribution, inventory and purchase); material requirement planning (MRP); resource
flow management (production scheduling, finance and human resources management);
works documentation (work order, shop order release, material issue release and route
cards for parts and assemblies); shopfloor control and management and others like
costing, maintenance management, logistics management and MIS. Also, the model of
ERP includes areas such as finance (financial accounting, treasury management,
enterprise control and asset management), logistics (production planning, materials
management, plant maintenance, quality management, project systems, sales and
distribution), human resources (personnel management, training and development and
skills inventory) and workflow (integrates the entire enterprise with flexible
assignment of tasks and responsibilities to locations, positions, jobs, groups or
individuals) (Siriginidi, 2000).
Although an ERP system is a pure software package, it embodies established ways
of doing business. Studies have illustrated that an ERP system is not just a pure
software package to be tailored to an organisation but an organizational infrastructure
that affects how people work and that it “imposes its own logic on a company’s
strategy, organisation, and culture” (Davenport, 1998; Lee and Lee, 2000). For example,
SAP R/3, as one of the major ERP vendors, currently stores over 1,000 predefined
processes that represent financial, logistics and human resources best practices in a
repository called “business engineer” (SAP Web site, 2002; Scott and Kaindl, 2000). The
 Enterprise
resource
planning

363

Figure 1.
ERP system modules

evolution of ERP is described in the next section in order to better comprehend the ERP
planning and implementation issues.

3. Evolution of ERP
Manufacturing enterprises involved in manufacturing, sales and distribution activities
have been using computers for 30 years to improve productivity, profitability and
information flow across the enterprise. ERP system traces its roots commencing from
standard inventory control packages to material requirements planning (MRP), and
BPMJ manufacturing resource planning (MRP II). An inventory control system was the
10,4 software designed to handle traditional inventory processes. It was one of the early
business applications, which did not belong to the finance and accounting area.
In the 1970s, the production-oriented information systems were known by the name
MRP. MRP at its core is a time phased order release system that schedules and releases
manufacturing work orders and purchase orders, so that sub-assemblies and
364 components arrive at the assembly station just as they are required. Some of the
benefits of MRP are reduction of inventories, improved customer service, enhanced
efficiency and effectiveness (Siriginidi, 2000).
As competitive pressures increased and users became more sophisticated, MRP
evolved and expanded to include more business functions such as product costing and
marketing. In the early 1980s, MRP expanded from a material planning and control
system to a company-wide system capable of planning virtually all the firm’s
resources. This expanded approach was MRPII. A major purpose of MRPII is to
integrate primary functions (i.e. production, marketing and finance) and other
functions such as personnel, engineering and purchasing into the planning process to
improve the efficiency of the manufacturing enterprise (Chen, 2001; Chung and Snyder,
2000; Mabert et al., 2001). MRPII has certain extensions like rough cut capacity
planning and capacity requirements planning for production scheduling on the shop
floor as well as feedback from manufacturing shops on the progress of fabrication.
Since the 1980s, the number of MRPII installations has continued to increase, as MRPII
applications became available on mini and micro computers (Siriginidi, 2000).
Like MRP, MRPII focused on the manufacturing process. The next stage of MRPII
evolution was just-in-time (JIT) methodology that combined with the plummeting price
of computing to create the islands of automation in late 1980s.
The Gartner Group of Stamford, CT, USA, coined the term ERP in the early 1970s to
describe the business software system that is the latest enhancement of an MRPII
system (encompasses all MRPII modules). A key difference between MRPII and ERP is
that while MRPII has traditionally focused on the planning and scheduling of internal
resources, ERP strives to plan and schedule supplier resources as well, based on the
dynamic customer demands and schedules (Chen, 2001).
The maturity stage of ERP occurred in the mid-1990s. The scope offered by ERP
expanded to include other “back-office” functions such as order management, financial
management, warehousing, distribution production, quality control, asset
management and human resources management. The evolution of extended-ERP
systems has further expanded in recent years to include more “front-office” functions,
such as sales force and marketing automation, electronic commerce and supply chain
management systems. The scope of ERP implementation encompasses what is often
referred to as the entire value chain of the enterprise, from prospect and customer
management through order fulfilment and delivery. An enterprise, to stay competitive,
has to not only identify information needs but also ensure that the information
infrastructure provides the right support to serve the enterprise, its customers and
suppliers. If it does not do so, then it runs the risk of being disconnected and excluded
from future opportunities (Siriginidi, 2000).
The technological evolution of ERP from MRP has been presented in detail by Chen
(2001) and Chung and Snyder (2000).
 Information system technology evolved from mainframe-based computing through Enterprise
the client/server era to the Internet era. Earlier the ERP systems were developed only to resource
work with huge mainframe computers. Most of the current ERP systems are based on
the client/server solution model (Rao, 2000; Siriginidi, 2000). In a client/server planning
environment, the server stores the data, maintaining their integrity and consistency
and processes the requests of the user from the client desktops. The load of data
processing and application logic is divided between the server and the client (Gupta, 365
2000). Now, ERP vendors are – as many other software vendors – forced to move from
a traditional client/server to a browser/Web server architecture in order to deliver
e-business capabilities (Scheer and Habermann, 2000; Yen et al., 2002). These systems
are built with a clear separation of functional components. The user interface
implemented using graphical user interface (GUI) techniques is deployed on client
machines. Powerful server machines host the databases and business logic written as
server procedures. The databases are built using relational database technology.
Relational database systems have enabled the vendors to put in the necessary
flexibility in terms of business logic and data structures to support parallel business
practice implementations. These technologies in general have allowed the users to
architect the system in such a way that installation, customisation and extensions are
possible in shorter timeframes (Rao, 2000).

4. Main vendors of ERP systems

Business information systems can be either designed as custom applications or
purchased as off-the-shelf standard solutions. The development of custom applications
is generally expensive and is often plagued by uncertainties, such as the selection of
appropriate development tools, the duration of the development cycle, or the difficulties
involved in assessing costs. Therefore, companies are radically changing their
information technology strategies by purchasing off-the-shelf software packages
instead of developing IT systems in-house (Holland and Light, 1999).
Out of more than 100 ERP providers worldwide, SAP-AG, Oracle, JD Edwards,
PeopleSoft and Baan – collectively called the “Big Five” of ERP software vendors –
control approximately 70 per cent of the ERP market share (Mabert et al., 2001)
(Figure 2). The middle end products include SSA, BPCS, Inertia Movers, etc., that offer
good functionality and could be implemented faster. The low-end products like QAD,
MFG, PRD, etc., could be implemented very fast, but offer limited functionality

Figure 2.
Market shares of ERP
system vendors
BPMJ (Rao, 2000). The key features of some of the popular ERP packages including
10,4 MFO/PRO from Qad, IFS/AVALON, SAP, JD Edwards, BAAN IV, Marshal(R) and
PeopleSoft, have been provided in Siriginidi (2000).
The top five ERP vendors have seen a growth rate of 61 per cent over the past year.
Although there are some differences in the marketing strategies and products of these
five ERP vendors, they have similar offerings and shortcomings. Most ERP vendors
366 still use the same basic model as MRP II for the manufacturing planning portion of
their systems (Chung and Snyder, 2000). ERP has packaged processes best business
practices in the form of a business blueprint. This blueprint could guide firms from the
beginning phase of product engineering, including evaluation and analysis, to the final
stages of product implementation. Many ERP systems also come with
industry-specific solutions, or templates, that enhance the standard system by
addressing key issues or business processes within an industry group (Mabert et al.,
2001).
Established in Germany in 1972, SAP AG, with 33 per cent market share, is the
major ERP package vendor for the Fortune 500 companies. With more than 20,000
employees and an estimated revenue of $3.1 billion in 1997, up 30 per cent from 1996
(Scott and Kaindl, 2000), SAP has become one of the largest software companies in the
world. To stay ahead of the competition, SAP spends 20-30 per cent of its annual
revenues on R&D (Scott and Kaindl, 2000). SAP’s first two products operated on
mainframe hardware; R/1 was batch-oriented, but in 1981 was replaced by R/2, an
online system. In 1992, SAP introduced R/3, a powerful client/server architecture
product, which quickly gained dominant market share. SAP R/3 is an integrated suite
of financial, manufacturing, distribution, logistics, quality control and human
resources application systems and can address or facilitate changes in the business
processes (Al-Mashari and Zairi, 2000b; Bancroft et al., 1998; Mandal and
Gunasekaran, 2002). Its architecture consists of three main layers of software
(Al-Mashari and Zairi, 2000b):
(1) SAP GUI, representing the presentation layer.
(2) SAP application layer.
(3) SAP database layer (Bancroft et al., 1998).
Applications of the SAP R/3 system are coded in the programming language ABAP/4
(Advanced Business Application Programming Language). ABAP/4 is an interpreted
language, which makes it very easy to integrate new ABAP/4 application programs
into the system (Doppelhammer et al., 1997). SAP offers modules for logistics and
human resources and also expands its product line to supply chain management, sale
force automation and data warehousing (Yen et al., 2002).
PeopleSoft was founded in 1987 and went public in 1992 (O’Leary, 2000). PeopleSoft
can be scaled to accommodate from ten to 500 users. PeopleSoft dedicates its products
(PeopleSofte) to human resource and client/server technology. In many cases, firms
have chosen some other ERP (e.g. SAP) for all other modules and PeopleSoft for human
resources. They continue to prove its value in enterprise-wide applications and
financial and supply chain applications. Currently, it targets the service sector with
products designed to help companies handle their intangible costs (Yen et al., 2002).
Baan was founded in The Netherlands in 1978. Bann has approximately 3,000
clients in 5,000 sites worldwide (O’Leary, 2000). It sells manufacturing software to
companies that are wary of SAP product. It stocks up on small software suppliers, Enterprise
which results in a wider variety of product offerings. They continue to develop resource
enterprise applications in areas that SAP and Oracle are less competitive (Yen et al.,
2002). planning
Oracle is the second-largest supplier of software in the world. Oracle was founded in
1977 in the USA (O’Leary, 2000). It offers ERP applications designated to work with its
database software. Oracle is a leading database software provider that sells most of its 367
applications to manufacturers and consumer goods companies. Oracle intends to
dominate its database software by levering over the ERP market (Yen et al., 2002).
Oracle’s reputation in ERP systems is for developing a product that can be interfaced
with other products in order to construct a “best of breed” (BoB) system (O’Leary,
2000).
JD Edwards provides ERP applications (OneWorlde) for managing the enterprise
and supply chain. Their integrated applications give customers control over their front
office, manufacturing, logistics and distribution, human resources and finance
processes. JD Edwards continues to allow its ERP solutions to operate in the
computing environment and also to be XML enabled (Yen et al., 2002). OneWorld is
designed for between five and 500 users (O’Leary, 2000).
To summarise, such systems have a few common properties: they are based on a
central, relational database, they are built on a client/server architecture, and they
consist of various functional modules. In addition to a base module, there are modules
for general accounting, budgeting, fixed assets, sales order management, procurement,
inventory management, customer service management, etc. ERP systems may support
most functional units and processes of a company – if its structure and working
procedures are not too far from the mainstream (Kueng et al., 2000).

4.1 Drawbacks of the ERP systems

Although ERP systems have certain advantages such as low operating cost and
improving customer service, they have some disadvantages due to the tight integration
of application modules and data. Huge storage needs, networking requirements and
training overheads are frequently mentioned ERP problems. However, the scale of
business process re-engineering (BPR) and customisation tasks involved in the
software implementation process are the major reasons for ERP dissatisfaction. Baan,
PeopleSoft, as well as SAP calculate that customers spend between three and seven
times more money on ERP implementation and associated services compared to the
purchase of the software license (Scheer and Habermann, 2000). This means that ERP
projects are large, costly and difficult and that they require large investment in capital
and staff and management time (Adam and O’doherty, 2000). Yen et al. (2002)
identified the following disadvantages of ERP: its high cost prevents small businesses
from setting up an ERP system, the privacy concern within an ERP system and lack of
trained people may affect ERP’s efficiency. Implementation of an ERP project is
painful, and customisation is costly and time-consuming. The various shortcomings of
the ERP systems such as functionality and technicality are shown in Figure 3. Some of
these shortcomings have been discussed by O’Connor and Dodd (2000).
The different types of ERP system misfits (the gaps between the functionality
offered by the package and that required by the adopting organisation), based on
Asian organisations, have been presented by Soh et al. (2000). The observed misfits
BPMJ
10,4

368

Figure 3.
Drawbacks of ERP
systems
were clustered into three broad categories: data, process and output, in line with a Enterprise
traditional software application perspective. Data misfits arise from incompatibilities resource
between organizational requirements and the ERP package in terms of data format, or
the relationships among entities as represented in the underlying data model. planning
Functional misfits arise from incompatibilities between organizational requirements
and ERP packages in terms of the processing procedures required. Output misfits arise
from incompatibilities between organizational requirements and the ERP package in 369
terms of the presentation format and the information content of the output. Their
findings suggest that the “misfit” issue may be worse in Asia because the business
models underlying most ERP packages reflect European or US industry practices.
ERP systems are complex, and implementing one can be a difficult, time-consuming
and expensive project for a company. For instance, the ERP adoption time, typically,
takes from a few months for firms accepting all default settings, to years for firms
needing to make major modifications. It costs tens of millions of dollars for a medium
sized company and $300-500 million for large international corporations (Mabert et al.,
2001). Along with obvious costs of an ERP implementation, there are also some
possible hidden costs that may include losing some very intelligent employees after the
initial implementation is done, continual implementation and training, waiting for
return on investment (ROI) and post-ERP depression (Coffey et al., 2000). Moreover,
even with significant investments in time and money, there is no guarantee of the
outcome (Mabert et al., 2001). Although most ERP systems have business practice
processes in their repository, not all of them are necessarily best in class applications
for a specific firm. The firm still needs to select those applications available from
software vendors for its specific requirements, and integrate both applications and
ERP system into the firm’s IT backbone. Because ERP has made it easy to integrate
other competing best in class applications, most firms either face the high cost of
modifying the ERP modules to meet their requirements or simply do not install the
applications. Indicative of the problems, some retailers were reported to face
difficulties, when they implement ERP applications that were developed with
manufacturers in mind (Chung and Snyder, 2000). One of the aims of implementing
ERP systems is to uphold the highest quality standards of the business process.
However, when the business condition has been changed, the system may not
guarantee that the process embedded in ERP is still best. Hence, for example, a
multi-agent system for adaptive inventory control in an ERP system maintenance has
been proposed by Kwon and Lee (2001).
Themistocleous et al. (2001) proposed a model to identify, analyse and present the
problems of ERP systems, as well as to examine new approaches to application
integration (AI). They claimed that ERP systems amplified the need for integration, as
existing systems have to be incorporated with ERP applications. AI securely
incorporates functionality from disparate applications and leads to the development of
new strategic business solutions for enterprises. The results of the research confirm AI
as a new means of system integration that adds value by placing business logic in the
applications network, thus creating a more dynamic information system
infrastructure. Additionally, organisations face many problems when customising
ERP packages. Thus, customisation problems did not allow companies to make serious
changes on the ERP package.
BPMJ IT and business managers also argue that ERP suites tend only to have one best in
10,4 class application. For instance, PeopleSoft is linked with a good human resources
module and Oracle with financials. Furthermore, organisations may be left waiting for
the next upgrade from their ERP software vendor when they require further
functionality.

370 5. Selection criteria of an ERP system

The normal symptoms that would suggest the need for ERP would be high levels of
inventory, mismatched stock, lack of coordinated activity, excessive need for
reconciliation, flouting of controls, poor customer response levels and operations
falling short of industry benchmarks in terms of cost controls and general efficiency.
The tangible benefits due to ERP adoption include: reduction of lead time by 60 per
cent, 99 per cent on-time shipments, increased business, increase of inventory turn over
by 30 per cent, reduction in cycle time by 80 per cent and work in progress reduced to
70 per cent. The intangible benefits include: better customer satisfaction, improved
vendor performance, increased flexibility, reduced quality costs, improved resource
utility, improved information accuracy and improved decision-making capability
(Siriginidi, 2000).
The deployment of ERP has two issues, viz., selection and implementation. The
system selection process is deceptively difficult. While most ERP packages have
similarities, they also have fundamental design differences. The selection involves
listening to the views of various people whose involvement would be essential and the
criteria to go beyond technical issues such as proven experience of the supplier in the
desired industry, along with support infrastructure. Selecting a system that is simple
offers smart tools for system administration, a consistent interface and supports
graphical and character interfaces that could reduce the implementation time.
The various selection criteria of ERP systems are well documented (Bernroider and
Koch, 2001; Chen, 2001; Everdingen et al., 2000; Rao, 2000; Siriginidi, 2000; Sprott, 2000;
Verville and Halingten, 2002). From the clients’ view point, the selection factors to be
considered, as addressed by Siriginidi (2000), include the stability and history of the
ERP supplier, last 12-month track record of ERP sales, implementation support from
suppliers and improvement in ERP packages.
In another study, Bernroider and Koch (2001) discussed the results from an
empirical study of Austrian companies concerning differences in the characteristics of
the ERP system selection process between small or medium and large sized
organisations. In particular, they addressed the fields of software packages considered
and chosen, the weights assigned to different selection criteria, the size and structure of
the team responsible for the decision, the methods employed and the effort expended.
The analysis conducted showed that there is a significant influence of organizational
size on the software package selected. SAP R/3 systems are selected more often by
large organisations, while small or medium sized companies often choose software
supplied by Baan. A total of 29 different ERP selection criteria have been identified; the
adaptability and flexibility of the software is more highly valued by smaller
organisations, as these advantages may be unique business processes that need to be
preserved. A short implementation time and therefore, lower costs are also given more
importance, as resources are a bigger issue. The high importance attributed to fit with
current business procedures, flexibility, costs, user-friendliness of the system and short
implementation has also been found in another empirical study of European midsize Enterprise
companies conducted by Everdingen et al. (2000). With regard to evaluating ERP resource
suppliers, they also reported that all the European mid-markets tend to focus on
product characteristics such as the functionality and quality of the products and planning
services, rather than on characteristics of the ERP supplier of the product. At the same
time, the speed of implementation, the possibilities of the product for interfacing with
other applications and the price of products and services are also important supplier 371
selection criteria. Sprott (2000) identified four incremental selection criteria that
organisations should use to choose the supplier of an enterprise applications. These are
applicability, integration, adaptability and upgradability.
In his paper, Chen (2001) analysed several critical planning issues prior to the ERP
adoption decision, including needs assessment and choosing a right ERP system,
matching business process with ERP system, understanding the organizational
requirements, and economic and strategic justification. He reported that competitive
strategy, targeted market segments, customer requirements, manufacturing
environment, characteristics of the manufacturing process, supply chain strategy
and available resources all enter into the decision of ERP adoption.
Verville and Halingten (2002) investigated the decision process for selecting an ERP
system through a case study. They reported that the three distinct types of an ERP
system evaluation were vendor, functional and technical. Criteria such as vendor
reputation, financial stability, long term viability and the vendor’s vision/corporate
direction were factors that were considered during the vendor evaluation.
In recent years, most ERP system suppliers have increased their focus on small or
medium sized organisations, especially as the total European midsize market for IT
products and services surpasses US $50 billion per year (Everdingen et al., 2000). There
are some reasons for this trend, including a saturation of the market, as most large
organisations have already implemented an ERP solution, increasing possibilities and
need for the integration of systems between organisations and the availability of
relatively inexpensive hardware (Gable and Stewart, 1999). Rao (2000) identified the
criteria for the selection of an ERP system for SMEs. These criteria are affordability,
domain knowledge of suppliers, local support, technical upgradability and
incorporation of latest technologies.
Frequently, references are made to factors proposed (Gable and Stewart, 1999) within a
framework that identifies four main dimensions of the specificity of small to medium sized
organisations: organizational, decisional, psychosociological and information systems.
In their study of ERP migrations, Kremers and van Dissel (2000) suggested that
migrations have a bad reputation with the users of ERP systems. They consider such
projects as time-consuming and expensive. As a result, many organisations do not
migrate the moment a new version becomes available. In addition, migrations are
usually motivated by technical reasons rather than by business opportunities. These
findings suggest that many organisations may have problems leveraging their (often
large) investments in ERP systems. In addition, new improved versions of ERP
systems regularly become available at the same time for all users. Therefore, at best,
organisations may try to compete on the basis of the capability to migrate to a new
version quickly.
The literature review on this research topic shows that most of the studies have
focused on the US and European business (Table II). Further research is required to
BPMJ Type and Size of
10,4 Author(s) field of study organisations Selection factors considered

Siriginidi Theoretical Large size Stability and history of the ERP supplier
(2000) Last 12-month track record of ERP sales
Implementation support from suppliers
372 Improvement in ERP packages including stability of
the product and functionality
Bernroide Empirical Mid and Implementation time
and Austrian large size Adaptability and flexibility of software
Koch (2001) Costs
Vendor support
Team size and structure
Market position of vendor
Customer and supplier needs
Everdingen Empirical Midsize Fit with business process
et al. (2000) European Flexibility
User-friendliness
Costs
Scalability
Supplier support and training
Product functionality and quality
Implementation speed
Interface with other systems
Price
Market leadership
Corporate image and international orientation
Sprott (2000) Theoretical Large size Applicability
Integration
Adaptability
Upgradability
Chen (2001) Theoretical Large size Competitive strategy
Targeted market segments
Customer requirements
Manufacturing environment
Characteristics of the manufacturing process
Supply chain strategy and available resources
Rao, 2000 Theoretical SMEs Affordability
Domain knowledge of suppliers
Local support
Technical upgradable
Incorporation of latest technologies
Table II. Verville and Empirical Large size Vendor evaluation
ERP selection criteria Halingten USA Functional and technical aspects of the software
(comparison of papers) (2002)

identify the various selection criteria of ERP systems for Far East, Gulf and Middle
East organisations. The homogeneity of the business market among different countries
should be addressed.
5.1 ERP or best of breed Enterprise
An ERP “solution” can be put together in a number of ways. At one end, an resource
organisation can install a single vendor package. At the other end, it can integrate
different modules from different vendors and/or custom software for a BoB solution. planning
Both approaches are undoubtedly complex due to their scale, scope and BPR
requirements. The trade-offs of these two approaches are fairly simple. A multi-vendor
solution can provide the best functionality for each module, but implementing it 373
becomes more complex because of the interfaces that need to be established. A single
vendor solution may not have all the functionality required, but it will be easier to
implement (Mabert et al., 2001).
Until recently, most vendors (SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, etc.) have promoted a “one
size fits all” solution built on “industry best practices”. This approach forced
organisations to either conform to the “best practices” and configurations suggested by
vendors and implementation consultants or embark on extremely costly
reconfiguration of their ERP package (Clemmons and Simon, 2001).
Light et al. (2001) highlight BoB as an alternative approach to enterprise IT
infrastructure development. In their paper, the differences between BoB and single
vendor ERP approaches are discussed and the issues organisations need to consider
when deciding on a strategy are shown to centre on the complexity of implementation,
required levels of business process alignment and associated maintenance. ERP
requires a clean slate approach, whereas BoB offers the chance for organisations to
recognise the existing ways of work and make trade-offs with stakeholders. This is an
important distinction, as the BPR associated with BoB can facilitate implementation
and the management of complexity. Another important difference is that ERP systems
do not offer the same levels of flexibility, and potentially, the responsiveness associated
with BoB. However, the trade-off is likely to be concerned with the future maintenance
requirements. BoB approaches have the potential to require higher degrees of
maintenance due to the complex connections made between different components,
whereas maintenance of components and connections between components, of single
vendor ERP systems is largely outsourced to the vendor. However, the paper presented
a comparative analysis between ERP and BoB approaches, particularly with respect to
the impact on business process and BPR implementation. Other issues such as
technology and cost require more research effort.

6. Implementation of an ERP system

A tremendous effort has been made in discussing the implementations of ERP systems.
Al-Mashari and Zairi (2000a) proposed an integrative framework for SAP R/3
implementation. Their framework was based on the premise that effective deployment
of SAP R/3 is greatly determined by the extent to which certain key elements such as
the business case, implementation strategy, change management and BPR, are
comprehensively considered and fully integrated. A more detailed case study focused
on SAP R/3 implementation is available from Sieber et al. (2000).
The successful implementation of an ERP system increases competitiveness by
increasing quality, reducing redundancy, speeding up processes, reducing lead times
and inventory levels and increasing customer satisfaction (Coffey et al., 2000; Gupta,
2000). It has become increasingly clear that implementing an ERP system requires
extensive efforts to transform the organisation’s processes. ERP systems are
BPMJ supposedly based on best practice generic business processes. Therefore, when
10,4 purchasing an off-the-shelf ERP system, organisations obtain these practices and
subsequently are pushed into the direction of implementing them (Kremers and van
Dissel, 2000).
According to a recent study, more than 70 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies have
either begun the implementation of an ERP system or plan to do so in the next few
374 years (Coffey et al., 2000). Another positive aspect is that smaller firms that are very
dependent on large companies, are going to be forced into ERP packages to stay
compliant with larger organisations’ ERP systems.
Enterprise preparedness for embarking an ERP system has been discussed by
Siriginidi (2000). For instance, infrastructure resource planning, education about ERP,
human resource planning, top management’s commitment, training facilities and
commitment to release the right people are among the factors that should be considered
before implementing an ERP package. Chen (2001) claimed that economic and strategic
justifications for an ERP project prior to installation are very necessary, not only
because of the enormous investments and risks involved; the justification process helps
to identify all the potential benefits that can be accrued with ERP implementation,
which later become yardsticks for performance evaluation. Reductionism and complex
thinking in the realm of ERP implementations have been discussed by Wood and
Caldas (2001).
Failures of ERP system implementation projects have been known to lead to
organizational bankruptcy (Davenport, 1998; Markus et al., 2000b). A methodological
framework for dealing with the complex problem of evaluating ERP projects has been
proposed by Teltumbde (2000). A study of problems and outcomes in ERP projects has
been conducted by Markus et al. (2000b). Two basic research questions were
addressed. First, how successful are companies at different points in time in their ERP
experiences, and how are different measures of success related? Second, what problems
do ERP adopters encounter as they implement and deploy ERP, and how are these
problems related to outcomes? Markus et al. (2000b) developed a four-phase model of
ERP implementation: chartering, project, shake-down and onwards and upwards. The
findings showed that the success of ERP systems depend on when it is measured and
that success at one point of time may only be loosely related to success at another point
of time. Companies experience problems at all phases of the ERP system life cycle and
many of the problems experienced in later phases originated earlier, but remained
unnoticed or uncorrected. These findings suggest that researchers and companies will
do well to adopt broad definitions and multiple measures of success and pay particular
attention to the early identification and correction of problems.
However, current ERP research has focused on the ERP implementation stage,
post-implementation and other organizational issues, the issue of acquisition process
for ERP software is, for the most part, being ignored. Further research work in this
area should be aimed to detail the difference in the ERP implementation between SMEs
and large organisations. Most ERP systems contain best practice models. Current
studies have not focused on the knowledge transfer practices involved in an ERP
implementation including the various types of knowledge transferred and factors
affecting this transfer.
There are different approaches to ERP strategy, ranging from skeleton
implementations to full functionality. There are also important differences in how
organisations manage the gap between their legacy systems and the ERP business Enterprise
processes. It appears easier to mould the organisation to the ERP software rather than resource
vice versa. In the following section, various implementation techniques will be
presented. planning

6.1 Implementation approaches

ERP systems are now the most common IT strategy for all organisations. From a 375
management perspective, the nature of the ERP implementation problem includes
strategic, organisation and technical dimensions. Therefore, ERP implementation
involves a mix of business process change (BPC) and software configuration to align
the software with the business processes (Holland and Light, 1999).
There are two different strategic approaches to ERP software implementation. In
the first approach, an organisation has to re-engineer the business process to
accommodate the functionality of the ERP system, which means deep changes in
long-established ways of doing business and a shake up of important peoples’ roles
and responsibilities. This technique will take advantage of future ERP releases, benefit
from the improved processes, and avoid costly irreparable errors. The other approach
is customisation of the software to fit the existing process, which will slow down the
project, introduce dangerous bugs into the system and make upgrading the software to
the ERP vendor’s next release excruciatingly difficult, because the customisations will
need to be torn apart and rewritten to fit with the new version (Koch et al., 1999).
However, the former approach has proven to be more logical and effective; historically,
ERP implementations have had to deal with the critical issue of changing the business
process or modifying the software (Boykin, 2001; Clemmons and Simon, 2001). Since
each alternative has drawbacks, the solution can be a compromise between complete
process redesign and massive software modification. However, many companies tend
to take the advice of their ERP software vendor and focus more on process changes.
The current generation of ERP systems also provides reference models or process
templates that embody the current best business practices (Kumar and Hillegersberg,
2000). When improving business processes, reference models can be included.
Reference models provided by ERP software vendors or consultant companies benefit
the customer by utilising business process knowledge and best practices, providing the
opportunity to compare business software solutions or pinpointing positive or negative
implementation issues (Scheer and Habermann, 2000).
An ERP implementation often entails transferring the business knowledge
incorporated in the basic architecture of the software package into the adopting
organisation. In their paper, Lee and Lee (2000) proposed a new approach to analysing
ERP implementations from a knowledge transfer perspective. First, the types of
knowledge transferred during an ERP implementation and the factors affecting this
transfer were identified. Then they investigated how conflicts between the business
knowledge transferred from the ERP package and the existing organizational
knowledge are resolved. Their results indicated that the business processes which are
incorporated in an ERP package are transferred into an organisation along with the
business rules inherent in the processes due to process automation, the limited
flexibility of such packages and the cross-functional nature of an ERP package. The
results also suggested that an organisation’s adaptive capability concerning the role
and responsibility redistribution, the development of new types of required knowledge
BPMJ and the introduction of a different knowledge structure influences an organisation’s
10,4 ability to internalise these standardised processes into business routines that provide a
competitive advantage.
ERP projects are complex and require reliance on many different types of expertise
often sourced outside the organisation. Consultants often advise managers to
undertake some degree of re-engineering of key processes before acquiring ERP
376 systems (Bancroft et al., 1998); this adds to the complexity and political character of the
projects (Adam and O’doherty, 2000). These difficulties have led some researchers to
take a negative view on ERP systems. Wood and Caldas (2000) characterised the goals
of ERP systems and questioned whether the current interest in ERP in the business
community is justified more by political reasons than by sound managerial reasoning.
Indeed, these authors found low levels of satisfaction in their survey of firms having
implemented ERP systems with 45 per cent of firms perceiving no improvements
whatever from implementation and 43 per cent claiming that no cycle reduction had
been obtained.
ERP implementation should involve the analysis of current business processes
and the chance of re-engineering, rather than designing an application system that
makes only the best of bad processes. Therefore, ERP implementation and BPR
activities should be closely connected. In principle, it would be always better to
carry out BPR in advance of ERP. Pragmatically, it may not be easy to do so
because BPR is effort intensive and costs money and time. Also, carrying out BPR
in advance of ERP implies that the enterprises need to put resources into two
successive projects. In addition, it would be worth implementing the ERP package
in its vanilla form. ERP packages offer many best business practices that might
be worth including as a part of BPR (Gulla and Brasethvik, 2002). After the ERP
implementation, one could get into continuous process re-engineering. Several
enterprises may have different primary objectives in implementing ERP. They
would probably fall in one of the following: standardisation of objectives, BPR,
elimination of organizational and technical bottlenecks, improvement in quality of
information, replacement of out-of-date procedures and systems, integration of
business processes, reduction in stand alone systems and interfaces, and covering
areas previously neglected. The objectives and the corresponding expectations
should be clearly documented (Siriginidi, 2000).
In an exploratory survey, Wood and Caldas (2001) found that most of the companies
in the survey (71 per cent) admitted that implementation followed re-engineering or
was conducted simultaneously with re-engineering. However, 24 per cent of the firms
affirmed that the implementation process was focused on its human side and its
transformational dimension, while 36 per cent of companies confirmed that the
implantation process was more heavily focused on IT.
An empirical investigation of the reality of ERP system implementations in Irish
organisations has been carried out by Adam and O’doherty (2000). They focused
specifically on the profiles and sizes of the organisations implementing ERP and on the
key parameters in their relationship with their suppliers of ERP software. They found
that the ERP implementations in Irish organisations are different to the projects that
have been reported elsewhere in two key respects. First, the organisations interested in
ERP software were, on average, far smaller than the case studies reported in the
literature and the majority of the cases they reviewed were SMEs. Second, the duration
of implementation was far shorter than that reported elsewhere. These results are not Enterprise
surprising if one considers the smaller average size of Irish organisations, but they resource
indicated that the ERP movement is truly ready for an extension towards the SME
market. They also indicated that the duration of the implementation of ERP software planning
may be related to the size and complexity of the client organisation and that SMEs can
expect to have better time implementing ERPs that the current literature suggests.
They also found that software implementers play a key role, not only in technical terms 377
but also in managerial and political terms, because they can help their clients in
correcting their expectations and perceptions of ERP systems and implementations.
Chan (2001) identified the essential knowledge required for ERP software
implementation in SMEs. Furthermore, he proposed a framework for interrelating
the various areas of knowledge. The framework comprises three dimensions: the
project management, the issues and the technical knowledge dimensions.

6.2 Factors affecting the implementation process

The difficulties of ERP implementations have been widely cited in the literature
(Appleton, 1997; Davenport, 1998). Although companies spend millions on ERP
packages and the implementation process, there is extensive evidence that they
experience considerable problems, particularly during the actual implementation
project. In response to these problems, there has been a developing body of academic
literature (Bancroft et al., 1998; Holland and Light, 1999; Markus et al., 2000b; Motwani
et al., 2002; Nah et al., 2001; Parr and Shanks, 2000) which addresses the difficulties of
ERP implementation by proposing critical success factors (CSFs) and process models
of the implementation. Both are aimed at better planning and hence, more successful
ERP implementation.
Bancroft et al. (1998) provided CSFs for ERP implementation, including top
management support, the presence of a champion, good communication with
stakeholders and effective project management. The factors specific to ERP
implementation include re-engineering business processes, understanding corporate
cultural change and using business analysts on the project team. In another study,
Holland and Light (1999) developed a CSFs framework to help managers successfully
plan and implement an ERP project. Their CSFs model includes strategic factors, such
as the overall implementation strategy, and tactical factors such as technical software
configuration and project management variables. The approach has been illustrated by
two case studies. The case analysis highlighted the critical impact of legacy systems
upon the implementation process and the importance of selecting an appropriate ERP
strategy.
Research on the critical factors for initial and ongoing ERP implementation success
has been discussed by Nah et al. (2001). In their paper, 11 factors were identified to be
critical to ERP implementation success: ERP teamwork and composition; change
management program and culture; top management support; business plan and vision;
BPR with minimum customisation; project management; monitoring and evaluation of
performance; effective communication; software development, testing and
troubleshooting; project champion; appropriate business and IT legacy systems. In
their study of the complexity of multi site ERP implementation, Markus et al. (2000a)
claimed that implementing ERP systems can be quite straightforward when
organisations are simply structured and operate in one or a few locations. But when
BPMJ organisations are structurally complex and geographically dispersed, implementing
10,4 ERP systems involves difficult, possibly unique, technical and managerial choices and
challenges.
In her study to describe and identify the risk factors associated with
enterprise-wide/ERP projects, Sumner (2000) concluded that some of the unique
challenges in managing enterprise-wide projects included the challenge of
378 re-engineering business processes to “fit” the process which the ERP software
supports, investment in recruiting and reskilling technology professionals, the
challenge of using external consultants and integrating their application-specific
knowledge and technical expertise with the existing teams, the risk of technological
bottlenecks through client/server implementation and the challenge of recruiting and
retaining business analysts who combine technology and business skills.
In a study aimed at determining the factors for success or failure in the
implementation of ERP systems in SMEs, Marsh (2000) suggested that key success
factors include cross-functional team approaches, organizational experience of similar
scale IT or organizational change projects, and deep understanding of the key issues
relating to ERP implementations. Marsh (2000) identified the failure factors including
top-down or consultant-driven implementations, IT department-driven implementations,
or implementations where the ERP is seen as a quick technological fix to problems
within the operation of the firm, rather than as a strategic investment.
Typically, ERP initiatives in organisations are motivated by senior executives other
than the chief information systems officer (CIO). Willcocks and Sykes (2000) tackle the
issue of ERP implementation from the perspective of the IT managers of a company.
They observed that most CIOs and their IS/IT departments seem to have been “asleep
at the wheel” in understanding and dealing with the ERP phenomenon. They suggest
how the CIO and the IS department can transform themselves in dealing with the
challenges of adopting, implementing, and if necessary, adapting enterprise-wide
systems to the specific needs of their organisation.
The technical and organizational complexities of projects represent conceptually
general rivers of implementation effort. Francalanci (2001) investigated the impact of
the technical size and organizational complexity of SAP R/3 projects on
implementation effort. Specifically, project size was measured in terms of the
number of SAP modules and sub-modules that were implemented, while complexity is
defined as the organizational scope of the project in terms of users involved and the
overall company size. His findings suggested that both technical size and
organizational complexity of projects are relevant drivers of implementation effort.
The results indicated that implementation effort not only grows with the number of
modules and sub-modules that were selected for implementation, but that SAP was
found to require increasing resources to be implemented in larger companies and for a
higher number of users, thus indicating that, while there was a technical component of
effort that was independent of the organizational breadth of the project, each user
added an organizational component of costs.
Sarker and Lee (2000) examined through a case study the role of three key social
enablers, strong and committed leadership, open and honest communication, and a
balanced and empowered implementation team, that are necessary
conditions/precursors for successful ERP implementation. They claimed that, while
all three enablers may contribute to ERP implementation success, only strong and Enterprise
committed leadership can be empirically established as a necessary condition. resource
In summary, one of the most widely-cited variables critical to the successful
implementation of a large customised system, as shown in Table III, is top planning
management support. Given the cross-functional nature and large budget of a typical
ERP implementation, the extent of top management support appears to be an
important characteristic. Two types of top management support roles have been 379
associated with systems implementation projects: the project sponsor and the project
champion roles. The project sponsor is responsible for budgetary support and ensuring
that key business representatives play a role on the project team. The project champion
may or may not be a formal member of the project team, but can play a key role in
change management efforts. In some organisations, the sponsor also serves as the
business champion for the project; in other situations, a champion emerges from
among the key business leaders (Brown and Vessey, 1999).
6.2.1 Implementation models. Aderet (2002), Al-Mudimigh et al. (2001), Bancroft et al.
(1998), Markus et al. (2000b) and Parr and Shanks (2000) have all proposed models of
ERP implementation in order to gain a deeper understanding of the process and hence,
provide guidelines for successful implementation. Bancroft et al. (1998) presented a
view of the implementation process which was derived from discussions with 20
practitioners and from studies of three multinational corporation implementation
projects. The Bancroft model has five phases: focus, as is, to be, construction and
testing and actual implementation. The focus phase is essentially a planning phase in
which the key activities are the set-up of the steering committee, selection and
structuring of the project team, development of the project’s guiding principles and
creation of a project plan. The as is phase involves analysis of current business
processes, installation of the ERP, mapping of the business processes on to the ERP
functions and training of the project team. The to be phase entails high-level design
and then detailed design subject to user acceptance followed by interactive prototyping
accompanied by constant communication with users. The key activities of the
construction and testing phase are the development of a comprehensive configuration,
the population of the test instance with real data, building and testing interfaces,
writing and testing reports and finally, system and user testing. Finally, the actual
implementation phase covers building networks, installing desktops and managing
user training and support. In summary, the model of implementation extends from the
beginning (focus) of the project proper to the cut-over of the live system.
Parr and Shanks (2000) presented a project phase model (PPM) of ERP
implementation project that is a synthesis of the existing ERP implementation
process model and focuses on the implementation project. Two case studies of ERP
implementation within the same organisation, one unsuccessful and later a successful
one, were reported and analysed in order to determine which CSFs are necessary
within each phase of the PPM. The PPM has three major phases: planning, project and
enhancement. In addition, because the focus of the model was on the implementation
project itself, the project phase was divided into five sub-phases: set-up, re-engineering,
design, configuration and testing and installation. Parr and Shanks claimed that the
PPM, together with associated CSFs, provides guidance for practitioners when
planning ERP implementation projects and also provides researchers with a
foundation for further empirical research.
BPMJ Author(s) Validation Critical factors of ERP implementation
10,4
Bancroft et al. (1998) Yes. Three multinational Top management support
companies Presence of a champion
Good communication with stakeholders
Effective project management
Holland and Light Yes. Two case studies Strategic factors, such as the overall
380 (1999) implementation strategy
Tactical factors such as technical software
configuration
Project management variables
Critical impact of legacy systems upon the
implementation process
Importance of selecting an appropriate ERP
strategy
Nah et al. (2001) No ERP teamwork and composition
Change management program and culture
Top management support
Business plan and vision
BPR with minimum customisation; project
management
Monitoring and evaluation of performance
Effective communication
Software development, testing and
troubleshooting
Project champion
Appropriate business and IT legacy systems
Markus et al. (2000a) No Simple structure of organisations
Operate in one or a few locations
Marsh (2000) Yes. Nine case studies Success factors include:
Cross-functional team approaches
Organizational experience of similar scale IT or
organizational change projects
Deep understanding of the key issues relating to
ERP implementations
Failure factors including:
Top-down or consultant driven implementations
IT department driven implementations
Implementations where the ERP is seen as a
quick technological fix to problems within the
operation of the firm, rather than as a strategic
investment
Francalanci (2001) No Technical size and organizational complexity
Sarker and Lee (2000) Yes. One case study Strong and committed leadership
Open and honest communication
Balanced and empowered implementation team
Umble et al. (2003) Yes. One case study Clear understanding of strategic goals
Commitment by top management
Excellent project management
Table III. A great implementation team
Critical factors of ERP Data accuracy
implementation Extensive education and training
(comparison of papers) Focused performance measures
An integrative framework for ERP implementation has been proposed by Enterprise
Al-Mudimigh et al. (2001). The framework was based on an extensive review of the resource
factors and the essential elements that contribute to success in the context of ERP
implementation. Although ERP packages provide generic off-the-shelf business and planning
software solutions for customers, there is growing evidence that failure to adapt ERP
packages that are implemented in companies with different corporate and national
cultures, to fit these cultures, leads to projects that are expensive and overdue. 381
Krumbholz et al. (2000) presented a research which synthesises social science theories
of culture, in order to be able to model and predict the impact of culture on ERP
package implementation. In their paper, they described a knowledge meta-schema for
modelling the surface and deeper manifestations of culture and predictions of ERP
implementation problems based on national culture differences. The results provided
evidence for an association between corporate culture and ERP implementation
problems, but no direct evidence for an association between national culture and
implementation problems. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that these diverse
implementation problems can be caused by a mismatch between a small set of core
values which are indicative of a customer’s corporate culture. Huang and Palvia (2001)
proposed a framework for examining ERP implementation in selected advanced and
developing countries. Their research showed that ERP technology faces additional
challenges in developing countries related to economic, cultural and basic
infrastructure issues. No validation of the proposed framework was presented. Also,
additional research work is required to investigate the relationships between the
various components of their framework.
Daily operations, planning and decision-making functions in organisations are
increasingly dependent on transaction data. Vosburg and Kumar (2001) discussed
issues related to the origin of dirty data, associated problems and costs of using dirty
data in an organisation, the process of dealing with dirty data then migrating to a new
system (ERP) and the benefits of an ERP in managing dirty data. They explored these
issues using the experiences of a company, which implemented an ERP system in their
organisation. The guidelines for companies planning to implement ERP solutions to
overcome dirty data problems has been presented in Vosburg and Kumar’s paper. Stijn
and Wensley (2001) discussed the issues relating to the representation of process
knowledge during the implementation and in-use phase of ERP systems. They
suggested that ERP may, very well, embed some of the process knowledge that is
resident in organisations.

7. Conclusion and implications for future research

ERP systems are sets of integrated applications that can provide a total solution to an
organisation’s information system needs by addressing a large proportion of business
functions including financial, accounting, human resources, supply chain and
customer information. They support a process-oriented view of the business as well as
business processes standardised across the enterprise. Recently, these packages are
implemented on client/server architectures that are more flexible and scalable than
mainframe systems. Many papers have been written on this topic. In this paper, a
comprehensive review of the recent research work in ERP systems has been presented.
In addition, it has been observed that from the year 2000 till date an increasing number
of papers about ERP packages has been published. The Business Process Management
BPMJ Journal, Journal of Information Technology and the Communications of the ACM were
10,4 the journals where majority of the papers on this subject were published.
Most ERP systems still lack the more advanced product costing techniques, such as
activity-based costing (ABC), life-cycle costing and target costing. Also, they lack the
capabilities of the advanced techniques for dealing with uncertainties such as fuzzy
logic. Furthermore, state-of-the-art techniques such as neural networks and genetic
382 algorithm should also implement in the existing ERP systems. Further research effort
is required to incorporate these new techniques in ERP systems.
In most countries, SMEs are the backbone of the economy. While in the past many
SMEs were acting on local markets, today Web-based technologies and community
networks are changing the basis of competition. More and more SMEs are now
exposed to the forces of global competition. From this point of view, it is crucial that
SMEs continuously improve their competitiveness to assert themselves in the market.
Therefore, SMEs are moving towards ERP packages. Although in recent years most
ERP system suppliers have increased their focus on SMEs, current ERP systems are
still expensive. As the financial resources of SMEs are clearly limited, they cannot
afford them. There is a need to provide micro ERPs, i.e. near ERP capabilities built into
a product and sold at an affordable price, including implementation. Research effort is
required to provide an ERP system that has the flexible assurance capabilities to
evolve with the dynamic changes of a company.
Currently, there are two approaches for the implementation of ERP systems namely
moulding the business process to match the ERP software or vice versa. Each
technique has drawbacks as discussed in Section 6.1. Further research is necessary to
develop a new technique for adopting the ERP system to overcome the shortcomings of
the current approaches. The new implementation model should take the SMEs into
consideration.
Future trends in ERP, including developments such as Web-based procurement
applications and outsourcing of ERP applications, have been suggested by Al-Mashari
(2003) and Gupta (2000).
ERP software still requires many resources and efforts to integrate all of the major
business functions in the initiating firm. Some of the topics will be on the impact of
ERP on organizational alignment, organizational learning, infrastructure, mass
customisation, competitive advantage and organizational structure. A customer
relation management (CRM) module should be included in the ERP packages.
Since most ERP vendors are moving towards Internet Web-based applications to
fulfil the e-commerce era, the development of security issues needs to be addressed.
We hope that this paper reinforces the ongoing research, provides a broad view of
the current status in ERP systems research, and offers potential directions for the
development of the ERP systems.

Note
1. AMR Research, available at: www.amr.com

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Further reading
Avital, M. and Vandenbosch, B. (2000), “SAP implementation at Metalica: an organizational
drama in two acts”, Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 15, pp. 183-94.
Bashein, B.J., Markus, M.L. and Riley, P. (1994), “Preconditions for BPR success and how to
prevent failures”, Information Systems Management, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 7-13.
Caldas, M. and Wood, T. (2000), “How consultants can help organizations survive the ERP
frenzy”, available at: www.gv.br/prof_alunos/thomaz/ingles/paper6.htm (accessed 17
January 2002).
Cullin, A., Webster, M. and Muhlemann, A. (2000), “Enterprise resource planning (ERP): a system
for global manufacturing management”, Proceedings of the 16th National Conference on
Manufacturing Research, pp. 241-5.
Daneva, M. (1999), “Measuring reuse of SAP requirements: a model-based approach”,
Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Software Reusability, pp. 141-50.
Jacobs, F.R. and Whybark, D.C. (2000), Why ERP? A Primer on SAP Implementation,
McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Kappelhoff, R. (1998), “Integration of ERP to the final control elements”, ISA Transactions,
Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 229-38.
Langenwalter, G.A. (2000), Enterprise Resource Planning and beyond: Integrating Your
Organisation, St Lucie Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Li, C. (1999), “ERP packages: what’s next?”, Information Systems Management, Vol. 16 No. 3,
pp. 31-5.
Ptak, C.A. (2000), ERP: Tools, Techniques, and Applications for Integrating the Supply Chain,
CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL.