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

Adapting ERP Systems in the Post-implementation Stage: Dynamic IT Capabilities for ERP

Background: Firms recently rely on enterprise systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), to integrate, automate, and support business strategy and operations. However, uncertain environments require firms continuously adapt their ERP systems to meet changing business demands in the post-implementation stage. What capability can drive ERP post-implementation adaptation (PIA) deserves further research. Based on the dynamic capabilities view, we propose that dynamic IT capabilities for ERP, namely IT sensing, IT learning, IT integration, and IT coordination capability, can drive ERP-PIA. Method: A cross-sectional and matched-pair mail survey of both business and IS executives was administrated for collecting data from the top 1,000 manufacturing firms in Taiwan. Partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was constructed for measurement validation and hypotheses testing. Results: Based on 128 samples (74 firms), our findings demonstrate the importance of the dynamic IT capabilities for achieving higher levels of ERP-PIA. ERP-PIA can facilitate greater organizational benefits from system use. Conclusions: This study conceptualizes and empirically demonstrates the importance of ERP-PIA, which provides a specific example of IT/IS adaptation. This study also conceptualizes dynamic IT capabilities for ERP, and theorizes how these capabilities interact to enable firms to adapt ERP systems to fulfill the emergent demands. This study improvs the understanding of the roles of dynamic IT capabilities for ERP in enabling ERP-PIA and organizational benefits through a richer theoretical framing than that of prior studies. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol12/iss1/2

Benefits realization from IS/IT investments - a perspective from ERP systems

Delivery of benefits from many ERP systems remains disappointingly low. The high investment in ERP systems means that realizing benefits from these implementations is of critical importance to many organizations. Thus, the main aim this research is to develop insights that can help organizations to improve benefits realization from ERP systems. In doing so, this study is not only evaluating the benefits gained by different organizations, but it is also analysing the key activities that are deemed necessary for benefits realization. This research was conducted in two phases to explore the research objectives. The initial phase was conducted with a selection of stakeholders working in the ERP industry to gather insights concerning the adoption of benefits management approaches and the relationship between ERP customization and benefits realization. The second phase comprised of three in-depth case studies that investigated the activities that were necessary to realize benefits from ERP projects. The research provides a number of important contributions to the academic literature. With respect to the adoption of benefits management (BM) approaches, this research contributes by providing empirical insights about what organizations are actually doing to manage benefits. More specifically, the study provides evidence to suggest that organizations have an increased chance of realizing benefits if they develop localized BM approaches based on organizational needs and context. This study also highlights the role of organisational change in facilitating the realisation of business benefits, in the context of ERP projects. Another important contribution is an attempt in establishing of relationship between different types of customizations and the resultant benefits. The study also contributes by indicating that organizations, in the very particular context of ERP projects, can identify the additional un-planned benefits during the use of the system. This study makes another important new contribution to the literature, by demonstrating the importance of tackling any organizational inhibitors in order to realize maximum benefits at various stages of ERP systems life cycle. Finally, with respect to the evaluation of ERP systems, this research contributes by providing interpretive evaluation of operational ERP systems to explore the process of how benefits were realised, in the participating organizations. It is envisaged that interpretive evaluation will fuel the insights that will maximize the attaining of benefits from ERP implementations

Service-oriented architecture as a driver of service innovation in newly emerging service systems: An exploratory view

Innovation in services can be regarded as an inter-play of service concepts, service delivery practices, client interfaces, and service delivery technologies. Furthermore, innovations in services are increasingly brought to the market by networks of firms, selected for their unique capabilities and operated in a coordinated manner, referred to as a service system or service value network (SVN). Bringing such service innovations to market by a network of firms requires extensive coordination and integration of data, information/knowledge and processes, while ensuring strategic alignment of partnering firms. In this research we examine how Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), and its effect on Information Technology Infrastructure Flexibility (ITIF), may act as a potential enabler for recently identified organizational drivers of services innovation in a service system, namely Collaborative Architecture Management (CAM) and Collaborative Organizational Infrastructure (COI). A preliminary qualitative study of a Telco and its partners in the Middle East validates the dynamic capabilities at play in our proposed research model

Understanding Behavioral Sources of Process Variation Following Enterprise System Deployment

This paper extends the current understanding of the time-sensitivity of intent and usage following large-scale IT implementation. Our study focuses on perceived system misfit with organizational processes in tandem with the availability of system circumvention opportunities. Case study comparisons and controlled experiments are used to support the theoretical unpacking of organizational and technical contingencies and their relationship to shifts in user intentions and variation in work-processing tactics over time. Findings suggest that managers and users may retain strong intentions to circumvent systems in the presence of perceived task-technology misfit. The perceived ease with which this circumvention is attainable factors significantly into the timeframe within which it is attempted, and subsequently impacts the onset of deviation from prescribed practice and anticipated dynamics

Enterprise resource planning post-implementation assimilation challenge : an integrative framework for a better post-implementation assimilation

Cette étude s'inscrit dans la recherche émergente sur la post-implémentation des TI et vise à contribuer à la discussion sur l'impact des facteurs contextuels sur le niveau d'assimilation des technologies complexes telles que les systèmes ERP. Compte tenu de la rareté des recherches, cette étude vise aussi à enrichir ce champ de recherche qui a été considérablement négligé lors de l'examen des initiatives d'ERP d'entreprises dans un pays en développement. Comme la plus-value d'une TI ne peut être réalisée que lorsque le système est véritablement assimilé dans l'organisation, cette recherche examine les facteurs qui entraînent des niveaux d'assimilation variés entre les entreprises malgré leur utilisation d'une technologie de base similaire. En adoptant une méthodologie de recherche qualitative recourant à une approche de cas multiples, on explore les déterminants de l'assimilation efficace de l'ERP et ses défis ultérieurs. En outre, on développe un modèle intégrateur qui décrit les relations entre les facteurs identités. L'analyse des données a révélé un ensemble de facteurs organisationnels, technologiques et environnementaux ayant un impact direct et indirect sur l'assimilation de l'ERP. Cela est surtout vrai pour le soutien de la haute direction, ses stratégies, ses interventions et ses perceptions, qui se sont avérés les facteurs sous-jacents influant directement et indirectement sur le processus d'assimilation dans une entreprise. De même, les différences entre les deux groupes d'entreprises sont liées plus à leur contexte organisationnel qu'aux différences culturelles. Ces résultats sont communs pour toutes les entreprises étudiées dans les deux contextes. Fondé sur les résultats de l'analyse, un modèle intégrateur est suggéré dans le but de décrire les relations entre les différents facteurs. Ainsi, cette étude offre une feuille de route structurée pour mieux comprendre l'assimilation et met en relief plusieurs problèmes critiques et des déterminants cruciaux qui devraient être attentivement gérés et minutieusement .considérés afin de réaliser une valeur ajoutée importante de l'ERP

Managing enterprise resource planning and multi-organisational enterprise governance:a new contingency framework for the enterprisation of operations

This research has been undertaken to determine how successful multi-organisational enterprise strategy is reliant on the correct type of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) information systems being used. However there appears to be a dearth of research as regards strategic alignment between ERP systems development and multi-organisational enterprise governance as guidelines and frameworks to assist practitioners in making decision for multi-organisational collaboration supported by different types of ERP systems are still missing from theoretical and empirical perspectives. This calls for this research which investigates ERP systems development and emerging practices in the management of multi-organisational enterprises (i.e. parts of companies working with parts of other companies to deliver complex product-service systems) and identify how different ERP systems fit into different multi-organisational enterprise structures, in order to achieve sustainable competitive success. An empirical inductive study was conducted using the Grounded Theory-based methodological approach based on successful manufacturing and service companies in the UK and China. This involved an initial pre-study literature review, data collection via 48 semi-structured interviews with 8 companies delivering complex products and services across organisational boundaries whilst adopting ERP systems to support their collaborative business strategies – 4 cases cover printing, semiconductor manufacturing, and parcel distribution industries in the UK and 4 cases cover crane manufacturing, concrete production, and banking industries in China in order to form a set of 29 tentative propositions that have been validated via a questionnaire receiving 116 responses from 16 companies. The research has resulted in the consolidation of the validated propositions into a novel concept referred to as the ‘Dynamic Enterprise Reference Grid for ERP’ (DERG-ERP) which draws from multiple theoretical perspectives. The core of the DERG-ERP concept is a contingency management framework which indicates that different multi-organisational enterprise paradigms and the supporting ERP information systems are not the result of different strategies, but are best considered part of a strategic continuum with the same overall business purpose of multi-organisational cooperation. At different times and circumstances in a partnership lifecycle firms may prefer particular multi-organisational enterprise structures and the use of different types of ERP systems to satisfy business requirements. Thus the DERG-ERP concept helps decision makers in selecting, managing and co-developing the most appropriate multi-organistional enterprise strategy and its corresponding ERP systems by drawing on core competence, expected competitiveness, and information systems strategic capabilities as the main contingency factors. Specifically, this research suggests that traditional ERP(I) systems are associated with Vertically Integrated Enterprise (VIE); whilst ERPIIsystems can be correlated to Extended Enterprise (EE) requirements and ERPIII systems can best support the operations of Virtual Enterprise (VE). The contribution of this thesis is threefold. Firstly, this work contributes to a gap in the extant literature about the best fit between ERP system types and multi-organisational enterprise structure types; and proposes a new contingency framework – the DERG-ERP, which can be used to explain how and why enterprise managers need to change and adapt their ERP information systems in response to changing business and operational requirements. Secondly, with respect to a priori theoretical models, the new DERG-ERP has furthered multi-organisational enterprise management thinking by incorporating information system strategy, rather than purely focusing on strategy, structural, and operational aspects of enterprise design and management. Simultaneously, the DERG-ERP makes theoretical contributions to the current IS Strategy Formulation Model which does not explicitly address multi-organisational enterprise governance. Thirdly, this research clarifies and emphasises the new concept and ideas of future ERP systems (referred to as ERPIII) that are inadequately covered in the extant literature. The novel DERG-ERP concept and its elements have also been applied to 8 empirical cases to serve as a practical guide for ERP vendors, information systems management, and operations managers hoping to grow and sustain their competitive advantage with respect to effective enterprise strategy, enterprise structures, and ERP systems use; referred to in this thesis as the “enterprisation of operations”

Meeting Global Business Information Requirements with Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

The number companies operate on a global scale is on the rise seeking profitable business opportunities in the global arena. Global businesses have unique information requirements due to the integrated businesses activities in geographically dispersed business units, sourcing up to date consolidated information from numerous business processes, operating in different time zones and managing globally dispersed supply chains. Enterprise resource planning systems (ERP) are widely adopted by global businesses to meet their information requirements. This research explores the co-alignment of ERP systems capabilities to global business information requirements for improved financial, customer, learning & growth and internal business process performance outcomes. It also identified that the organization size and globalization history have an impact on global business performance

The Successful Implementation of Supply Chain Management Technology Initiatives: Technological Readiness as a Key Indicator

The emergence of what is modern supply chain management (SCM) can be attributed to the revolutionary advances in information technology over the past three decades. Despite significant investment in supply chain management technology (SCMT) and the implementation process, many companies still experience considerable complications during SCMT implementation. There is a dearth of research concerning the implementation of SCMT. A proven path to supply chain technology implementation has yet to be established. In an effort to address this gap, this dissertation considers the role of technological readiness as a part of a comprehensive model for SCMT implementation. A model is proposed and empirically tested

Designing and managing ERP systems for virtual enterprise strategy:a conceptual framework for innovative strategic thinking

The business environment today is transforming towards a collaborative context compounded by multi-organizational cooperation and related information system infrastructures. This chapter aims to examine Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems development and emerging practices in the management of multi-organizational enterprises and identify the circumstances under which the so-called ‘ERPIII' systems fit into the Virtual Enterprise paradigm; and vice versa. An empirical inductive study was conducted using case studies from successful companies in the UK and China. Data were collected through 48 semi-structured interviews and analyzed using the Grounded-Theory based Methodology (GTM) to derive a set of 29 tentative propositions which were then validated via a questionnaire survey to further propose a novel conceptual framework referred to as the ‘Dynamic Enterprise Reference Grid for ERP (DERG-ERP)'; which can be used for innovative decision-making about how ERP information systems and multi-organizational enterprises – particularly the Virtual Enterprise may be co-developed