Experiences While Selecting, Adapting and Implementing ERP Systems in SMEs: A Case Study

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are important for all kinds of enterprises. The selection and implementation of such systems are very difficult and many projects do not meet their expectations. While large companies have financial and human resources to engage in such a project, the situation for smaller sized enterprises is different. They have only limited budget, human resources and experiences. Hence, this case study describes an EPR selection and implementation project at a small-sized enterprise by analyzing the selection and implementation procedure and its critical success factors

Evaluation of the implementation of CRM in developing countries

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Managing relations with customers has been a main concern for business organisations from different sizes and fields. Such a concern has grown rapidly in the last few decades for a number of reasons such as the development of new technologies especially in the field of information technology (IT). Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a newly emerged concept in the fields of IT and business that aims to strengthen the relationships between an organisation and its customers. Despite the promising expectations of implementing such a concept by many organisations, a significant number of CRM projects fail or result in disappointing outcomes that fall far short of expectations. This motivated researchers and practitioners to study the sources of failure and the factors of success in CRM implementation. Although CRM existed first in western organisations, it has spread almost all over the world as an increasing number of firms are implementing or planning to implement CRM. This research designed an integrated framework for investigating and evaluating the implementation of CRM in developing countries. The design of this framework was based on previous studies in the field of CRM implementation especially in the area of studying CRM success and failure. It is also based on the common sense and knowledge of the researcher in the field of CRM. To help identify successful implementation of CRM and to provide organisations with a guide to implement CRM projects, the research reviewed and organised the literature on CRM success and failure as well as the previous studies in CRM frameworks. Subsequently, the research designed a framework for CRM implementation that integrates CRM implementation phases/stages, CRM components, and CRM success factors. To assess the feasibility of the framework in developing countries, the research developed in-depth case study methodology that focused on two large communication companies which operate in Saudi Arabia and are implementing CRM projects fully and partially. The questions of the case study were developed to assess the feasibility of the framework based on the comparison between the conceptual framework and the practical implementation of CRM by the case companies, and the case study protocol was developed accordingly. Data was collected through multiple sources such as in-depth interviews, observations, documentations and archival records. The results of the case study support the feasibility of the framework in implementing CRM in general. The assessment stage was highly supported by the results. In addition, the success factors and their importance in implementing CRM were supported by the results with variation of importance of the success factors. However, cultural issues were significant to the CRM implementation and required modification to the framework to be more effective when implemented in developing countries

Maturity Models in IS Research

Notwithstanding the relevance of maturity assessments in practice, Information Systems (IS) research has – despite exceptions – yet rarely endeavoured into reflecting and developing theoretically sound maturity models. This paper reports a literature review on maturity models in the IS domain. Specifically, it explores what type of research on maturity models has been undertaken (retrospection) and which potentially useful measures might be pursued in IS for future research (prospection). The paper suggests that research on maturity models is of growing interest; nevertheless, comparably few related articles have been published in the leading IS journals. We see that the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and its successor CMM Integration (CMMI) dominate studies of maturity. While maturity models have been addressed in prescriptive, descriptive and reflective works, the notions of maturity and maturity models have rarely been conceptualised in detail. In view of that, the paper presents implications for the practice of maturity model application and research thereof

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

Strategies for Implementing a Successful Enterprise Resource Planning System

The U.S. Department of Defense executives consider enterprise resource planning systems as a critical technology because of increasingly global operations and audit compliance pressures, which may affect organizational performance and overall success. The estimated cost to implement enterprise resources systems to avoid failure and meet budget cost across the Department of Defense services and agencies has ranged from $530 million to$2.4 billion. Guided by the general systems theory, the purpose of this single-case study was to explore enterprise resource planning strategies developed and implemented by United States Marine Corps military leaders. Data collection consisted of a review of organizational documents and semistructured interviews of 5 organizational leaders in a United States Marine Corps base in Albany, Georgia. Data analysis entailed interview transcription, keyword and phrase coding, and emergent theme identification. The prominent emergent themes were essential strategic planning guidance and organizational leaders and change management, which are the essential components for effectively implementing enterprise resource planning systems. The Department of Defense executives and senior leaders may use the findings of this study to develop an essential strategic plan, which could reduce the excessive cost and over-budget associated with enterprise resource planning systems. Social change implications include enhancing end user knowledge and reducing inefficiencies within organizations to improve corporate social responsibility

Boundary Spanning in Business Process Management: Theoretical Framing and Case Study

Based on dynamic capability and boundary spanning theory, this study develops a theoretical framework for collaborative BPM in inter-organizational networks. The framework presents collaborative BPM as an organizational capability that serves for connecting business processes through the purposeful employment of boundary objects (e.g., information systems) and boundary spanners (people) at the interfaces between different network partners. Collaborative BPM itself is also considered to rely on boundary spanners and boundary objects as they are needed to facilitate the cross-organizational sensing, seizing, and implementation of business process changes. The framework is applied in a multiple case study in which the collaborative BPM efforts of three exemplary organizations, which all participate in inter-organizational networks, are analyzed. As for practice, the framework provides a systematic blueprint that organizations can use to reflect on their capabilities for collaborative BPM. As for research, the study provides a theoretical framing from which future studies can depart to explore phenomena related to collaborative BPM

A framework for e-government implementation at a national level

This study attempts to explore and investigate empirically how an e-government system can be implemented at a national level; the key issues that might restrict its implementation; and how these issues could be treated in practice. Following a comprehensive review of the relevant literature, an initial conceptual framework for e-government implementation is formulated The framework is then applied in a real world case study to support further data collection and to establish an exhaustive view of the e-government implementation process at a national level. The case study examines the development of an e-government implementation in Qatar and involved 26 semi-structured interviews, 10 observations, 10 electronic reports, analysis of around 50 documents, and numerous newspaper articles and press releases. The interviewees included senior officials from the e-government steering committee, the e-government project team and various government ministries. The documentations included all the key documents relating the e-government project. Based on the data collected the initial framework is then revised by using the interpretive case study approach, which depends on an iterative research cycle where triangulated data are extracted The study then combined the evidence from the literature with the case study data to narrow the gap between e-government implementation theory and practice. As a result, a comprehensive framework including detailed measurements to differentiate four development stages is created. This framework classifies the key issues that might restrict e-government implementation into two main categories, organisational and technological issues, and uses other issues as the development measurements. The framework can be used as a tool to determine the road ahead for implementing an e-government system at a national level and to identify the main practices, processes, possible goals, progress indicators and key conditions to move from one stage to another. It can be claimed that this study has made a novel contribution to the area of e-government and has expanded the boundaries of knowledge, especially for governments that are seeking to implement an egovernment system at a national level

Design of Data-Driven Decision Support Systems for Business Process Standardization

Increasingly dynamic environments require organizations to engage in business process standardization (BPS) in response to environmental change. However, BPS depends on numerous contingency factors from different layers of the organization, such as strategy, business models (BMs), business processes (BPs) and application systems that need to be well-understood (“comprehended”) and taken into account by decision-makers for selecting appropriate standard BP designs that fit the organization. Besides, common approaches to BPS are non-data-driven and frequently do not exploit increasingly avail-able data in organizations. Therefore, this thesis addresses the following research ques-tion: “How to design data-driven decision support systems to increase the comprehen-sion of contingency factors on business process standardization?”. Theoretically grounded in organizational contingency theory (OCT), this thesis address-es the research question by conducting three design science research (DSR) projects to design data-driven decision support systems (DSSs) for SAP R/3 and S/4 HANA ERP systems that increase comprehension of BPS contingency factors. The thesis conducts the DSR projects at an industry partner within the context of a BPS and SAP S/4 HANA transformation program at a global manufacturing corporation. DSR project 1 designs a data-driven “Business Model Mining” system that automatical-ly “mines” BMs from data in application systems and represents results in an interactive “Business Model Canvas” (BMC) BI dashboard to comprehend BM-related BPS con-tingency factors. The project derives generic design requirements and a blueprint con-ceptualization for BMM systems and suggests an open, standardized reference data model for BMM. The project implements the software artifact “Business Model Miner” in Microsoft Azure / PowerBI and demonstrates technical feasibility by using data from an educational SAP S/4 HANA system, an open reference dataset, and three real-life SAP R/3 ERP systems. A field evaluation with 21 managers at the industry partner finds differences between tool results and BMCs created by managers and thus the po-tential for a complementary role of BMM tools to enrich the comprehension of BMs. A further controlled laboratory experiment with 142 students finds significant beneficial impacts on subjective and objective comprehension in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and relative efficiency. Second, DSR project 2 designs a data-driven process mining DSS “KeyPro” to semi-automatically discover and prioritize the set of BPs occurring in an organization from log data to concentrate BPS initiatives on important BPs given limited organizational resources. The project derives objective and quantifiable BP importance metrics from BM and BPM literature and implements KeyPro for SAP R/3 ERP and S/4 HANA sys-tems in Microsoft SQL Server / Azure and interactive PowerBI dashboards. A field evaluation with 52 managers compares BPs detected manually by decision-makers against BPs discovered by KeyPro and reveals significant differences and a complemen-tary role of the artifact to deliver additional insights into the set of BPs in the organiza-tion. Finally, a controlled laboratory experiment with 30 students identifies the dash-boards with the lowest comprehension for further development. Third, OCT requires organizations to select a standard BP design that matches contin-gencies. Thus, DSR project 3 designs a process mining DSS to select a standard BP from a repository of different alternative designs based on the similarity of BPS contin-gency factors between the as-is process and the to-be standard processes. DSR project 3 thus derives four different process model variants for representing BPS contingency factors that vary according to determinant factors of process model comprehension (PMC) identified in PMC literature. A controlled laboratory evaluation with 150 stu-dents identifies significant differences in PMC. Based on laboratory findings, the DSS is implemented in the BPM platform “Apromore” to select standard BP reference mod-els from the SAP Best Practices Explorer for SAP S/4 HANA and applied for the pur-chase-to-pay and order-to-cash process of a manufacturing company

IMPLEMENTING PROJECT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT MODEL TO SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED PROJECTS IN A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY – A DYNAMIC APPROACH

ABSTRACT Hectic project environment encourages organizations to invest more in developing overall project management through portfolio management to improve resource allocation and project prioritization whilst maximizing portfolio value and customer satisfaction. Thus, this thesis is conceived to examine the implementation of a project portfolio management model to respond to the dynamic customer project needs in the departments of electrical and automation as well as technical documentation in Etteplan Finland Oy. There were five separate interviews conducted together with the essential managers accompanied with thorough research on the current methodologies. Exploiting the interview results, a comprehensive research on the feasible dynamic management methodologies was executed. Based on results from the mentioned research methods, there was a broad case study implemented to compare the current methodologies with the new proposals and evaluate their feasibility and business value for the departments. Additionally, a SVM implementation was performed to find new aspects to efficiently managing projects. The results of the thesis showed the positive impact of applying dynamic project management methods for improved efficiency and reduction in projects overall costs. This enabled better understanding of KPI’s as well as methods for transparent communication. From a profitability perspective, this thesis emphasizes the need of implementing the methods for the companies small and medium sized projects for continuous development.TIIVISTELMÄ Hektinen projektiympäristö kannustaa organisaatioita investoimaan projektien portfolion hallintaan ja täten parantamaan projektienhallintaa kokonaisuudessaan. Näin voidaan saavuttaa parempi resurssien hallinta, projektien priorisointi ja samanaikaisesti maksimoida portfolion arvoa sekä asiakastyytyväisyyttä. Täten työn tarkoituksena on tutkia projektisalkun käyttöönottoa Etteplan Finland Oy:n sähkö ja automaation, sekä teknisen dokumentoinnin yksiköissä, jotta voidaan vastata asiakasprojektien dynaamisiin vaatimuksiin. Tutkielmassa haastateltiin yksikköjen päälliköitä ja projektitoimiston henkilöstöä, sekä tutkittiin kattavasti yrityksen käyttämiä tämänhetkisiä työkaluja. Tutkimustulosten avulla selvitettiin toteuttamiskelpoisten dynaamisten projektinhallintatyökalujen käyttömahdollisuuksia yksiköissä. Tämän jälkeen toteutettiin laaja case-tutkimus ja vertailu nykyisten ja uusien toimintatapojen välillä, sekä arvioitiin toimintatapojen käyttökelpoisuutta ja liiketoiminnallista arvoa. Lisäksi, työssä otettiin käyttöön SVM-malli tuomaan uusia näkökulmia tehokkaaseen projektien johtamiseen. Työn tulokset todensivat dynaamisen projektijohtamisen vaikutukset projektin tehokkuuteen ja kokonaiskustannusten alentumiseen. Tämän lisäksi työ toi esille toimintatapoja läpinäkyvään kommunikointiin, sekä korosti suorituskykymittareiden tärkeyttä. Yrityksen jatkuvan kehityksen ja kannattavuuden näkökulmasta työssä painottuu työkalujen ja metodien käyttöönoton tärkeys pienissä ja keskisuurissa asiakasprojekteissa