SMEs: ERP or virtual collaboration teams

Small firms are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role to promote economic development. SMEs in the beginning of implementing new technologies always face capital shortage and need technological assistance. Available ERP systems do not fulfil the specific requirements of Small firms. SMEs has scarce resources and manpower therefore many SMEs don?t have the possessions to buy and operate an ERP System. On the other hand competition and competitiveness of SMEs have to be strengthened. This paper briefly reviews the existing perspectives on virtual teams and their effect on SMEs management. It also discusses the main characteristics of virtual teams and clarifies the differences aspects of virtual team application in SMEs. After outlining some of the main advantages and pitfall of such teams, it concentrates on comparing of ERP and virtual collaborative teams in SMEs. Finally, it provides evidence for the need of ?Software as a Service (SaaS)? where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the web for SMEs as an alternative of ERP. It has been widely argued that ERP disadvantage in SMEs such as administrative expenditure and cost, isolated structure, severe lack of software flexibility, insufficient support of SMEs business and high operating cost, lead SMEs to use virtual collaborative team which is net work base solution

Enterprise resource planning adoption among Small Medium Enterprises (SME) in Malaysia

The topic on enterprise resource planning (ERP) adoption among small medium enterprises (SMEs) have attracted the interest of many IS researchers.Through the use of ERP it can help organization manage business operations systematically.The adoption of ERP is known to be of interest among large organizations.Due to its great potential values, the adoption of ERP solution is progressively increasing within SMEs. Very limited studies have focused their attention towards understanding the determinants of ERP adoption among SMEs.This study fills in the gap by examining this topic using technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) framework. This is an establish theory used to examine IT adoption at organizational level.The main objective of this research in progress paper is to introduce a conceptualized research model that can be used to examine ERP adoption among SMEs. This paper also discusses about the methodology adopted; and describes its theoretical and practical contributions

Towards a Framework for Smart Manufacturing adoption in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Smart Manufacturing (SM) paradigm adoption can scale production with demand without compromising on the time for order fulfillment. A smart manufacturing system (SMS) is vertically and horizontally connected, and thus it can minimize the chances of miscommunication. Employees in an SME are aware of the operational requirements and their responsibilities. The machine schedules are prepared based on the tasks a machine must perform. Predictive maintenance reduces the downtime of machines. Design software optimizes the product design. Production feasibility is checked with the help of simulation. The concepts of product life cycle management are considered for waste reduction. Employee safety, and ergonomics, identifying new business opportunities and markets, focus on employee education and skill enhancement are some of the other advantages of SM paradigm adoption. This dissertation develops an SM paradigm adoption framework for manufacturing SMEs by employing the instrumental research approach. The first step in the framework identified the technical aspects of SM, and this step was followed by identifying the research gaps in the suggested methods (in literature) and managerial aspects for adopting SM paradigm. The technical and the managerial aspects were integrated into a toolkit for manufacturing SMEs. This toolkit contains seven modular toolboxes that can be installed in five levels, depending on an SME’s readiness towards SM. The framework proposed in this dissertation focuses on how an SME’s readiness can be assessed and based on its present readiness what tools and practices the SMEs need to have to realize their tailored vision of SM. The framework was validated with the help of two SMEs cases that have recently adopted SM practices

MANAGING CHANGE IN ERP IMPLEMENTATION: LESSONS LEARNED FROM AN SME CONTEXT

Organizations implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems experience the need for extensive changes in structure, core processes, and roles - making change management crucial. Prior research on change management in ERP implementations focuses mostly on large enterprises and lacks empirical insight into why change management is challenging. We conducted a case study in a Norwegian Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) working in mechanical manufacturing. Interviews, observations, and documents were analyzed. This study contributes to the literature focusing on change management in ERP implementations and pro-vides rich insight into how and why change management is challenging in an SME context by detailing eight key reasons behind 33 challenges. Lessons learned from this study may have transferable value to other SMEs implementing ERP. The study highlights the importance of considering culture, overall organizational workload, and ensuring deep engagement during an ERP project. Several of the challenges were interconnected. Customizing organizational processes was challenging because it opposed the established culture within the company, risk management was underestimated, and culture was more of an impediment than a facilitator for change management. Finally, the management style, lack of holistic project view, and lack of competence in computer usage were also identified as challenges impeding an efficient implementation

Key benefits of enterprise resource planning adoption within small family businesses : a conceptual framework

This research mainly focused on the perceived benefits of ERP adoption for Small Family Businesses (SFB). In doing so, it explores some of the key benefits of an ERP system for SMEs. Through the exploration of the literature, a framework is constructed classifying the ERP benefits to SFBs, in that they are different to other businesses where ERP systems have historically been implemented. The literature also helps establish that there are some differences in how ERP benefits SFBs owed to the family ownership and management of business that brings about unique characteristics. Finally, this research concludes that adopting an ERP system within a SFB environment could assist in them achieving their main goals by improving business performance and better managerial control. It could also aid the achievement of SFB’s succession goals. It is, however, unclear how the ERP system can manage the tacit family and business knowledge relied upon by SFBs for their survival

Business Intelligence and Analytics in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

This thesis presents a study of Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) adoption in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although the importance of BI&A is widely accepted, empirical research shows SMEs still lag in BI&A proliferation. Thus, it is crucial to understand the phenomenon of BI&A adoption in SMEs. This thesis will investigate and explore BI&A adoption in SMEs, addressing the main research question: How can we understand the phenomenon of BI&A adoption in SMEs? The adoption term in this thesis refers to all the IS adoption stages, including investment, implementation, utilization, and value creation. This research uses a combination of a literature review, a qualitive exploratory approach, and a ranking-type Delphi study with a grounded Delphi approach. The empirical part includes interviews with 38 experts and Delphi surveys with 39 experts from various Norwegian industries. The research strategy investigates the factors influencing BI&A adoption in SMEs. The study examined the investment, implementation, utilization, and value creation of BI&A technologies in SMEs. A thematic analysis was adopted to collate the qualitative expert interview data and search for potential themes. The Delphi survey findings were further examined using the grounded Delphi method. To better understand the study’s findings, three theoretical perspectives were applied: resource-based view theory, dynamic capabilities, and IS value process models. The thesis’ research findings are presented in five articles published in international conference proceedings and journals. This thesis summary will coherently integrate and discuss these results.publishedVersio

Tracing the Clouds. A research taxonomy of cloud-ERP in SMEs

Cloud computing is an enabler and accelerator of digital transformation, which has brought many advantages that only large companies had before for any start-up and small firm could benefit. Cloud-based computing in the form of SaaS (Software as a Service) has given rise to a revolutionary new way of delivering software applications via the Internet on a pay-per-use basis. Cloud-ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solutions have become more affordable, easier to implement, simpler to maintain, and thus especially suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have limited resources and may not be willing to invest in on-premise solutions. Employing this technology empowers integrated management of business processes and has the potential to add technical and strategic business value for small businesses. Given the claimed significance of SMEs in a structure of the world economy, we embarked on a detailed study of the existing published literature to determine the status quo of research on cloud-ERP technology in SMEs and how it has evolved in terms of quantity, content, and publication outlets. This is achieved by systematically reviewing 74 articles from 43 journals and 22 conferences published between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2019. Using the ERP life-cycle-based framework by Esteves and Pastor (1999), articles are classified according to six life-cycle phases: adoption decision, acquisition, implementation, use and maintenance, evolution, and retirement. The findings, derived from a meta-analysis, illustrate that while current literature and studies related to the adoption decision phase are very rich, research on other phases of the ERP life cycle lacks strong empirical validation, due to a limited amount of publications. This study presents a comprehensive, structured literature review on cloud-based ERP adoption among SMEs and provides both academics and practitioners with a holistic view of the state of the current body of knowledge on the topic along with an understanding of how cloud-ERP in SMEs research is evolving

Computer-Supported Knowledge Management in SME

Knowledge management (KM) and Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) are not new. With the rise of the Internet, distributed and increasingly social technology, the management principles as well as the tools supporting KM also start to address small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Todays SMEs are increasingly required to manage knowledge assets in order to sustain their position on the competitive forefront in agile markets. This paper investigates the current state of the art on computer-based KMS (or KM tools as we call them) and commercial KM tools in order to harmonize the picture, derive a joint feature and application system scope and finally inspire future design-oriented research by unveiling gaps. It shows that recent SME-related KM tools do not address KM in a holistic managerial way, fail to link operative data sources such as ERP and CRM, lack effective reward and enabling processes to more quickly establish a knowledge sharing culture amongst SME employees. The main objective of the paper is to inform future design-oriented research

Managing European R&D projects in the Industry 4.0 context: the perspective of a small consulting firm

open1noopenMersico, LuigiMersico, Luig

Benefits and challenges of Enterprise Resource Planning for Pakistani SMEs

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is used to combine all the functions happening inside the organization with the help of one software. All the data is centralized which makes it easy to manage information for all participants. The literature on ERP is studied thoroughly the whole process of adoption till the implementation and final evaluations. But studies that focus on small and medium sized enterprises are limited in number when compared to the large scale enterprises. In case of Pakistan, research is very limited. In this thesis, the author tries to analyze the current status of SMEs usage of ERP system. The benefits obtained and challenges faced by SMEs of Pakistan are studied. Framework presented by Shang and Seddon (2000) is used to understand the benefits obtained by the SMEs in Pakistan. This is a comprehensive framework that classifies the benefits obtained by the ERP adoption, into five categories: operational benefits, managerial benefits, Strategic benefits, IT benefits, and Organizational benefits. The results show that SMEs of Pakistan are also getting many benefits after adoption of ERP. Most of the firms had implemented SAP software. Operational benefits were mentioned by all the firms. The most important benefits were report generation, quick access to critical information, better product and cost planning. Respondents also mentioned that they had reduced corruption as a result of ERP implementation. It is also an important benefit considering high corruption rate in Pakistan. Along with benefits, challenges faced by Pakistani SMEs included infrastructure problems like electricity, difficulties with integration of one module with other module, costs of adoption and lack of skilled ERP consultants. Further studies in this regard can be conducted on cloud based ERP which is fast growing all around the world