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

Business and Information Technology Alignment Measurement -- a recent Literature Review

Since technology has been involved in the business context, Business and Information Technology Alignment (BITA) has been one of the main concerns of IT and Business executives and directors due to its importance to overall company performance, especially today in the age of digital transformation. Several models and frameworks have been developed for BITA implementation and for measuring their level of success, each one with a different approach to this desired state. The BITA measurement is one of the main decision-making tools in the strategic domain of companies. In general, the classical-internal alignment is the most measured domain and the external environment evolution alignment is the least measured. This literature review aims to characterize and analyze current research on BITA measurement with a comprehensive view of the works published over the last 15 years to identify potential gaps and future areas of research in the field.Comment: 12 pages, Preprint version, BIS 2018 International Workshops, Berlin, Germany, July 18 to 20, 2018, Revised Paper

Aligning enterprise risk management with business strategy and information systems

Business leaders recognise effective risk management as one of the main success drivers for enterprises. Even though the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) concept has evolved significantly in the past years, in the aftermath of recent economic crises it became evident some of its critical challenges still need to be addressed. The review of subject literature led to a conclusion that current ERM approaches failed to protect enterprise value in turbulent and risky market conditions. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a conceptual analysis of the most common ERM practices and frameworks, in order to identify their shortcomings and areas requiring development. It is further aimed to provide guidance to business practitioners in implementing more integrated and effective Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) solutions. This research recognises the importance of aligning ERM programmes with business strategies, and with consolidated Information Systems. A “New Approach ERM Model” is developed as guidance for a successful alignment of ERM with enterprise business strategy, and for an effective adaption of Information Systems to requirements of ERM programmes. The “New Approach ERM Model” steers risk management initiatives and strategies in the same direction, and consequently allows enterprises to improve organisational effectiveness, increase shareholders value, and gain competitive advantage in the market

Enterprise architecture for small and medium-sized enterprises

Enterprise architecture (EA) is used as a holistic approach to keep things aligned in a company. Some emphasize the use of EA to align IT with the business, others see it broader and use it to also keep the processes aligned with the strategy. Although a lot of research is being done on EA, still hardly anything is known about its use in the context of a small and medium sized enterprise (SME). Because of some specific characteristics of SMEs, it is interesting to look how EA can be applied in a SME. In this PhD, we present an approach for EA for SMEs, which combines four dimensions to get a holistic overview, while keeping things aligned. The approach is developed with special attention towards the characteristics of SMEs. Case studies are used to refine the metamodel and develop an adequate method, while tool support is being developed to enable the validation rounds

A Survey on Economic-driven Evaluations of Information Technology

The economic-driven evaluation of information technology (IT) has become an important instrument in the management of IT projects. Numerous approaches have been developed to quantify the costs of an IT investment and its assumed profit, to evaluate its impact on business process performance, and to analyze the role of IT regarding the achievement of enterprise objectives. This paper discusses approaches for evaluating IT from an economic-driven perspective. Our comparison is based on a framework distinguishing between classification criteria and evaluation criteria. The former allow for the categorization of evaluation approaches based on their similarities and differences. The latter, by contrast, represent attributes that allow to evaluate the discussed approaches. Finally, we give an example of a typical economic-driven IT evaluation

Towards a business-IT alignment maturity model for collaborative networked organizations

Aligning business and IT in networked organizations is a complex endeavor because in such settings, business-IT alignment is driven by economic processes instead of by centralized decision-making processes. In order to facilitate managing business-IT alignment in networked organizations, we need a maturity model that allows collaborating organizations to assess the current state of alignment and take appropriate action to improve it where needed. In this paper we propose the first version of such a model, which we derive from various alignment models and theories

The Emergence of Enterprise Systems Management - A Challenge to the IS Curriculum

This paper proposes four cornerstones of a future Information Systems curriculum. It analyzes the challenges of the IS curriculum based on the development of enterprise systems, and further argues that the practice and the research into enterprise systems have progressed to a new stage resulting in the emergence of Enterprise Systems Management (ESM). Enterprise Systems Management calls for new competences and consequently represents new challenges to the IS curriculum. The paper outlines potential teaching issues and discusses the impact on the IS curriculum. Finally the paper suggests ways of approaching the challenges.No; keywords

The balanced scorecard as a knowledge management tool: a French experience in a semi-public insurance company

In this paper we present the Balanced Scorecard, a Strategic Control tool, which is quite famous all around the world and in the European countries. Its principle objective is to articulate planning decisions with control ones thanks to non-financial indicators. The Strategic Control and the Agency Theories constitute the foundation of this tool. But in Northern Europe, some specific Balanced Scorecard have been designed in the framework of the Knowledge Management Theory. To work, the Balanced Scorecard needs a sophisticated information system support. Using two theoretical backgrounds, the Strategic Control approach and the Knowledge Management Theory, we analyse the relevance of the Balanced Scorecard. More particularly, we present the French situation. First, we show that the French managers believe that the Balanced Scorecard is a relevant management instrument to drive the firm's objectives. Second, we describe the Balanced Scorecard of a semipublic French insurance company.Balanced Scorecard; Strategic Control; Non-financial Indicators; Knowledge Management; French Experience

Competences of IT Architects

The field of architecture in the digital world uses a plethora of terms to refer to different kinds of architects, and recognises a confusing variety of competences that these architects are required to have. Different service providers use different terms for similar architects and even if they use the same term, they may mean something different. This makes it hard for customers to know what competences an architect can be expected to have.\ud \ud This book combines competence profiles of the NGI Platform for IT Professionals, The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), as well as a number of Dutch IT service providers in a comprehensive framework. Using this framework, the book shows that notwithstanding a large variety in terminology, there is convergence towards a common set of competence profiles. In other words, when looking beyond terminological differences by using the framework, one sees that organizations recognize similar types of architects, and that similar architects in different organisations have similar competence profiles. The framework presented in this book thus provides an instrument to position architecture services as offered by IT service providers and as used by their customers.\ud \ud The framework and the competence profiles presented in this book are the main results of the special interest group “Professionalisation” of the Netherlands Architecture Forum for the Digital World (NAF). Members of this group, as well as students of the universities of Twente and Nijmegen have contributed to the research on which this book is based