Personalized Training in Romanian SME’s ERP Implementation Projects

Many practitioners and IS researchers have stated that the overwhelming majority of Enter-prise Resource Planning (ERP) systems implementations exceed their training budget and their time allocations. In consequence many Romanian SMEs that implement an ERP system are looking to new approaches of knowledge transfer and performance support that are better aligned with business goals, deliver measurable results and are cost effective. Thus, we have begun to analyze the training methods used in ERP implementation in order to provide a so-lution that could help us maximize the efficiency of an ERP training program. We proposed a framework of an ERPTraining module that can be integrated with a Romanian ERP system and which provides a training management that is more personalized, effective and less ex-pensive.ERP Systems, Training Methods, Blended Learning

Challenges and influential factors in ERP adoption and implementation

The adoption and implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is a challenging and expensive task that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have a detailed analysis of such factors that are critical to the adoption or implementation of ERP systems. Many efforts have been made to identify such influential factors for ERP; however, they are not filtered comprehensively in terms of the different perspectives. This paper focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different perspectives such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project. Results from the literature review are presented and 19 such factors are identified that are imperative for a successful ERP implementation, which are listed in order of their importance. Considering these factors can realize several benefits such as reducing costs and saving time or extra effort

Surfacing ERP exploitation risks through a risk ontology

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a risk identification checklist for facilitating user companies to surface, organise and manage potential risks associated with the post-adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Design/methodology/approach – A desktop study, based on the process of a critical literature review, was conducted by the researchers. The critical review focused on IS and business research papers, books, case studies and theoretical articles, etc. Findings – By systematically and critically analysing and synthesising the literature reviewed, the researchers identified and proposed a total of 40 ERP post-implementation risks related to diverse operational, analytical, organisation-wide and technical aspects. A risk ontology was subsequently established to highlight these ERP risks, as well as to present their potential causal relationships. Research limitations/implications – For researchers, the established ERP risk ontology represents a starting point for further research, and provides early insights into a research field that will become increasingly important as more and more companies progress from implementation to exploitation of ERPs. Practical implications – For practitioners, the risk ontology is an important tool and checklist to support risk identification, prevention, management and control, as well as to facilitate strategic planning and decision making. Originality/value – There is a scarcity of studies focusing on ERP post-implementation in contrast with an over abundance of studies focusing on system implementation and project management aspects. This paper aims to fill this significant research gap by presenting a risk ontology of ERP post-adoption. It represents a first attempt in producing a comprehensive model in its area. No other such models could be found from the literature reviewed

Goals/questions/metrics method and SAP implementation projects

During the last years some researchers have studied the critical success factors (CSFs) in ERP implementations. However, until now, no one has studied how these CSFs should be put in practice to help organizations achieve success in ERP implementations. This technical research report attempts to define the usage of Goals/Questions/Metrics (GQM) approach in the definition of a measurement system for ERP implementation projects. GQM approach is a mechanism for defining and interpreting operational, measurable goals. Lately, because of its intuitive nature the approach has gained widespread appeal. We present a metrics overview and a description of GQM approach. Then we provide an example of GQM application for monitoring sustained management support in ERP implementations. Sustained management support is the most cited critical success factor in ERP implementation projects.Postprint (published version

System implementation: managing project and post project stage - case study in an Indonesian company

The research reported in this paper aims to get a better\ud understanding of how the implementation process of\ud enterprise systems (ES) can be managed, by studying the\ud process from an organisational perspective. A review of\ud the literature on previous research in ES implementation\ud has been carried out and the state of the art of ES\ud implementation research is defined. Using several body of\ud literature, an organisational view on ES implementation is\ud described, explaining that ES implementation involves\ud challenges from triple domain, namely technological\ud challenge, business process related challenge, and\ud organisational challenge. Based on the defined state of the\ud art and the organisational view on ES implementation\ud developed in this research, a research framework is\ud presented, addressing the project as well as the postproject\ud stage, and a number of essential issues within the\ud stages. System alignment, knowledge acquisition, change\ud mobilisation are the essntial issues to be studied in the\ud project stage while institutionalisation effort and\ud continuous improvement facilitation are to be studied in\ud the post-project stage. Case studies in Indonesian\ud companies are used to explain the framework

Investigating factors influencing the decision making process for ERP adoption and implementation: An exploratory case study

The rapid developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have resulted into a borderless business environment along with an amplified market competition. Traversing through such a trend globally, organisations have significantly focused on adopting and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to automate their prime business processes, enhance organisational productivity with lower costs and prompt service delivery to fulfil consumer demands. Thus, ERP systems are considered as a principal source to provide imperative information vital for strategic decision making process. On the contrary, ERP systems adoption and implementation is also highly considered as a challenging and expensive process that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have an exhaustive investigation of influential factors that are critical to the adoption and implementation of ERP systems. A plethora of research studies have been theorised exploring factors influencing the decision making process for ERP adoption and implementation; however, the authors claim that these studies are not filtered comprehensively in terms of the different perspectives. Notwithstanding, the implications of such research have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. This paper thus focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different perspectives such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project based on the literature analysis. These perspectives comprise of 24 factors that are imperative for a successful ERP adoption and implementation, which are validated through a qualitative single case study based research. The empirical findings illustrate that these factor help realise significant benefits such as reducing costs and saving time or extra effort

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

Costs, Benefits and Value Distribution – Ingredients for Successful Cross-Organizational ES Business Cases

This paper introduces my PhD research project on developing guidelines for creating successful business cases for Enterprise System implementations in network settings. Three important aspects that were found to be important in such business cases are: the costs, benefits and the value distribution within a network. Each of the three aspects is addressed in this paper and the relationships between them are pointed out. A research model is presented showing how all three aspects contribute to the main goal of defining successful business case guidelines

Extending IT infrastructures in the service sector organisations through enterprise resource planning – a telecom case study

Copyright @ 2012 ISEing.Service Sector Organisations (SSOs) have significantly focused on adopting and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to automate their prime business processes, enhance organisational productivity with lower costs and prompt service delivery to fulfil consumer demands. Thus, ERP systems are considered as a principal source to provide imperative information vital for strategic decision making process. On the contrary, ERP systems adoption and implementation is also highly considered as a challenging and expensive process that not only requires rigorous efforts but also demands to have an exhaustive investigation of influential factors that are critical to the adoption and implementation of ERP systems. As a result, the authors exhibit that it is of great significance to investigate this area within SSOs. In so doing, this paper thus focuses on the ERP critical success factors from five different categories such as: stakeholders; process; technology; organisation; and project based on the literature analysis. These perspectives comprise of 24 factors that are imperative for a successful ERP adoption and implementation. These factors are validated through an in-depth qualitative single case study based research. The findings from the literature and empirical demonstrate that most of the factors influencing the decision making process for ERP adoption and implementation are highly significant with exception to few that have either low or medium importance