A Delphi Examination of Public Sector ERP Implementation Issues

A Delphi survey of ERP life cycle management issues was conducted within five agencies of the Queensland government. The five agencies each implemented SAP Financials at around the same time using the services of a common implementation partner. Responses were elicited from ERP project participants, from managers at the agencies, and from users of the financial systems. Valid questionnaires were returned from 61 respondents in the first round survey (response rate = 55%) and yielded 274 perceived issues. Through two rounds of the Delphi survey, these issues have been summarized and categorized into 10 major issue categories (with 38 sub-issues). The final survey round in which respondents will assign weights to these issues is currently underway. Lessons drawn from this study will assist in understanding the ERP life cycle and specific characteristics of the public sector ERP life cycle, and will provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of ERP systems for public sector organizations

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

A Comparative Analysis of Major ERP Lifecycle Implementation, Management and Support Issues in Queensland Government

This paper reports on a study of ERP lifecycle major issues from the perspectives of individuals with substantial and diverse involvement with SAP Financials in Queensland Government. A survey was conducted of 117 ERP system project participants in five closely related state government agencies. A modified Delphi technique identified, rationalized and weighed perceived major issues in ongoing ERP life cycle implementation, management and support. The five agencies each implemented SAP Financials simultaneously using a common implementation partner. The three survey rounds of the Delphi technique, together with coding and synthesizing procedures, resulted in a set of 10 major issue categories with 38 sub-issues. Relative scores of issue importance are compared across government agencies, roles (client vs implementation partner) and organizational levels (strategic, technical and operational). Study findings confirm the importance of this finer partitioning of the data, and distinctions identified reflect the circumstances of ERP lifecycle implementation, management and support among the stakeholder groups. The study findings should also be of interest to stakeholders who seek to better understand the issues surrounding ERP systems and to better realise the benefits of ERP

Identifying critical success factors of ERP systems at the higher education sector

In response to a range of contextual drivers, the worldwide adoption of ERP Systems in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has increased substantially over the past decade. Though the difficulties and high failure rate in implementing ERP systems at university environments have been cited in the literature, research on critical success factors (CSFs) for ERP implementations in this context is rare and fragmented. This paper is part of a larger research effort that aims to contribute to understanding the phenomenon of ERP implementations and evaluations in HEIs in the Australasian region; it identifies, previously reported, critical success factors (CSFs) in relation to ERP system implementations and discusses the importance of these factors

Decision-making to switch your ERP system: empirical Japanese evidence

A huge research gap in ERP life cycle, the Decline stage, remains. Not only limited empirical evidence is found to support the Decline stage, but also, the existence of this stage is not acknowledged by the majority. On the other hand, because that the Decline stage is short of theory and data support, organizations which are or will be at this stage have little help to deal with what might happen. This research aims at proposing a practical decision model for organizations facing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) switching/reversion. The process model of Rasmussen’s Cognitive Control of Decision Processes was adopted as the theory lens to construct the decision model. Based on the survey results from eighteen organizations, a descriptive model - A2O model - is proposed. This research fulfills the blank in the ERP life cycle, provides the empirical supports on exploring the critical issues, and enlightens vendors and consultants on product development and customer service

Adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning and Organizational Performance. A Conceptual Study on Public Sector

Organizational Performance (OP) and the Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) are two of the most significant studies to provide benefits to the organizations. There are different investigations on the ERP and OP in private and public organizations in developed and developing countries. This paper basically review the relationship between ERP and OP. Notably, as only a few studies have addressed the implication of ERP on OP in Arab countries such as in the Libyan context, it needs more investigation. The main objective to review and explore to which extent the Libyan public organizations are looking to improve their performance through the ERP syste

Critical Success Factors in Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation in U.S. Manufacturing

Organizational leaders have increasingly turned to enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, also known as decision-support systems, to make their firms\u27 operational, tactical, and strategic processes more efficient and effective in the changing global marketplace. High failure rates in ERP systems implementations make these projects risky, however. Most prior research on critical success factors for conventional ERP implementation has been on large enterprises, resulting in a gap in knowledge on these factors in the small and medium enterprises that constitute the majority of U.S. employer firms. A qualitative modified Delphi study with an expert panel of U.S. manufacturing consultants and 3 iterative rounds of data collection and analysis revealed consensus on 8 critical success factors in ERP implementations, with the highest agreement on top management support and commitment, enterprise resource planning fit with the organization, quality management, and a small internal team of the best employees. In addition to furthering knowledge in the fields of leadership and enterprise applications, the study expands enterprise resource planning experts\u27 and scholars\u27 understanding of strategies to improve project success and the triple bottom line for any size enterprise in the manufacturing industry. Practitioners in the ERP industry can also apply approaches outlined during ERP implementations to mitigate risk during these engagements. Implications for positive social change include additional job opportunities and higher wages through increased efficiencies in ERP applications

An ERP System Life Cycle-Wide Management and Support Framework for Small- and Medium-Sized Companies

Currently, the companies that have introduced the ERP system in Taiwan are mostly large enterprises. Due to the high cost of introduction and uncertain performance, however, ordinary small- and medium-sized enterprises can hardly afford the system. Thus, not only would a reference model for ERP life offer cycle-wide management support and assist large enterprises in evaluating and renewing the system, but it would also offer small- and medium-sized enterprises a set of procedures to successfully introduce the ERP system. The objective of this research is to explore the life cycle-wide management and support activities of an ERP system in order to establish a managerial model which can be used as a guideline for managers in dealing with their critical managerial activities. This study applied both the results from the literature review and Delphi study on the basis of Gowin\u27s Vee Approach. Through literature review, this research initially determined the life cycle-wide activities of the ERP system and then used the Grounded Theory to develop a prototype of the reference model for ERP life cycle-wide management and support. Subsequently, this study used the Delphi Method to collect the opinions of field experts. After analyzing and organizing the results, comparison and amendments were made to propose a final set of reference models for ERP life cycle-wide management and support. From the perspective of academic research, the authors believe that this study contributes to the development of a managerial model and provides prospective researchers with future directions in this subject area. As for the business sector, this managerial model can assist large enterprises through a better approach in management and support of the current ERP system, while small- and medium-sized enterprises are provided with a set of concrete steps to facilitate the successful introduction of the ERP system