Risks in ERP Project – Case Study of IS/ICT Management Capability Maturity Level and Risk Assessment

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects are considered to be expensive, time-consuming, difficult to manage, and extremely risky. ERP projects are risky from the strategic, operational, technical and organisational perspectives. The risks and critical success factors of ERP projects have been widely studied, and the management of risks is crucial to a successful ERP project. Generic risk analyses have faced inflation, and in the worst case companies do not manage risks in their ERP projects at all. This paper presents the early stage assessment of ERP project risks in three firms’ ERP projects. The focus is on company-specific risk identification. Companies of this study have limited maturity in IS/ICT management capabilities. Understanding of capability maturity level is useful to efficient risk management in an ERP project. In this paper we compare the company-specific risks to common risk list found in the literature. Qualitative case study of three firms provides empirical evidence of uncovered ERP risks if only common risk list is used. As a result we claim that in addition to generic project management risks there is also a need to assess company-specific-risks. In fact, company-specific risks are usually critical to company’s ERP project success

ERP systems in SMEs: A literature review

Published version of a chapter in Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Also available from the publisher: http://doi.dx.org/10.1109/HICSS.2011.191This review summarizes research on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). Due to the close-to-saturation of ERP adoptions in large enterprises (LEs), ERP vendors now focus more on SMEs. Moreover, because of globalization, partnerships, value networks, and the huge information flow across and within SMEs nowadays, more and more SMEs are adopting ERP systems. Risks of adoption rely on the fact that SMEs have limited resources and specific characteristics that make their case different from LEs. The main focus of this article is to shed the light on the areas that lack sufficient research within the ERP in SMEs domain, suggest future research avenues, as well as, present the current research findings that could aid practitioners, suppliers, and SMEs when embarking on ERP projects

Development and Evaluation of a Customer-Centered ERP Implementation Method

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are widely implemented in companies’ operation management and there are already a number of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) ERP products on the market. However, companies often have difficulty in identifying the requirements for selecting an ERP system, and also in specifying their objectives in an ERP implementation project. Despite the available information on ERP implementations, companies need a how-to method to support them in gathering and analyzing their ERP requirements. This qualitative empirical research deals with the development of a Customer-Centered ERP Implementation (C-CEI) method for the analysis of ERP system requirements. The development is conducted using an action research approach. The C-CEI method utilizes the principles and process of User-Centered Design (UCD) that aims at involving end users in the early stages of the product development. The results of this research are divided into four parts: (1) the C-CEI method itself, (2) the lessons learned from four companies that participated in the development of the C-CEI method, (3) content analysis of C-CEI documents produced in the companies, and (4) interviews of the companies’ personnel who had participated in the development of the C-CEI method. This research guides practitioners in how the ERP implementation can be approached employing a pre-defined method, and how the shared understanding of the ERP project objectives and activities are achieved within the organization. For academics, this study directs the research interest towards developing scientifically-based ERP implementation methodologies to complement those currently provided by ERP vendors and consultants

ERP system implementation in small and medium-sized enterprises

This thesis presents a study of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Compared to large enterprises, SMEs represent fundamentally different environments, with a number of characteristics typifying the SME context. Because of these distinguishing differences, the findings from studies of ERP implementation in large enterprises cannot be fully applied to SMEs. The purpose of this research project is to explore the influences of the SME context on the ERP system implementation, addressing the following overall research question: How does the SME context affect ERP system implementation? The implementation term in this thesis refers to the entire ERP life-cycle, denoting the complete implementation process. A qualitative exploratory research approach is applied to answer the research question. The research is conducted through a combination of literature review and case study research. The empirical part comprises a multiple case study of ERP implementation in four SMEs. All four case organizations are privately owned SMEs in the Czech Republic. The research strategy applied is to investigate influences of the contextual factors on various activities across the ERP life-cycle. A list of characteristics, which typify the SME context and could potentially influence on ERP implementation, is synthesized from relevant literature. The SME characteristics are grouped into three contextual dimensions: organizational, environmental, and technological. Then, the influences of the SME characteristics on various activities across the ERP life-cycle are explored. To organize the findings, a six stage model of the ERP-life cycle is adopted. A detailed cross-case analysis is conducted, identifying similar and contrasting findings between the cases. The research results are presented in five articles published in international conference proceedings and journals. The purpose of this thesis summary is to integrate and discuss the results presented in the publications in a coherent way. The thesis contributes to four research areas. First, the study contributes to the research stream on contextual influences on ERP system implementation, with particular focus on the influence of the SME context. The ownership type and limited resources were identified as the most influential characteristics of the SME context. Furthermore, an early stage of organizational growth and obsolete legacy systems influenced several issues

ERP in SMEs : exploring ERP lifestyle cost issues

This thesis presents a study of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems lifecycle in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The majority of businesses and firms around the globe can be considered to be SMEs. Thus, SMEs are seen to be typical companies that are the cornerstone of most economies. Compared with large enterprises (LEs), SMEs have limited budgets and resources, and have a higher sensitivity to costs. Although ERP adoption is one of the most complex, costly, and biggest projects an enterprise can embark on, many factors lead SMEs to take such a decision. When SMEs take the first steps towards adopting an ERP system, they need to think about many things; first and foremost, they need to take into account the cost of adoption. Literature and professional reports show that a prevailing number of ERP adoption projects fail because of inaccurate or optimistic budgets and time schedules. In addition, many organizations have difficulty identifying the potential cost factors that could occur during their adoption projects Moreover, current mainstream cost management and estimation methods are inadequate in ERP adoptions settings. The purpose of this thesis is to explore and identify the cost factors and other cost estimation related issues that may occur when SMEs adopt ERP systems. Many researchers have argued that expected and potential benefits are influential during the budgeting process and investment evaluation, and should not be ignored. Thus, the investigation of benefits management and realization practices falls within the boundaries of this research. In order to identify cost factors associated with ERP adoption in SMEs, and SMEs practices and behaviours in relation to the estimation of costs and benefits, it is necessary to explore one main research question and its subset of questions.- What are the challenges to the management and estimation of costs and benefits within on-premise ERP adoption projects in SMEs? The ERP adoption term used in this thesis refers to the first five phases of the ERP lifecycle framework developed by Esteves and Pastor (2007), which denote the ERP introduction process. This process moves from the “adoption decision” through to go-live and maintenance, and evolution; however, it excludes the retirement phase. In order to understand and investigate the challenges in their perspective context, a qualitative exploratory research approach is adopted to answer there search question stated above. This PhD study was carried out through a combination of literature reviews, panels of experts, and case study research. The empirical part of the study encompasses a multiple case study, an experts’ panel, and one in-depth case study of ERP adoptions in four SMEs. All four organizations are privately owned Egyptian small and medium -sized enterprises. Besides the target organizations, the data collection process covered two ERP vendors (local and international), two implementation partners, two independent ERP and investment consultants, and eight participants on the experts’ panel. Data analysis was carried out in order to identify impending cost factors and challenges that SMEs may encounter when justifying and evaluating their investments and estimating their adoption budgets. This thesis has mainly adopted a six-phase ERP lifecycle framework. There search results are presented in six articles, which focused on the different lifecycle phases. The articles have been published in international peer reviewed conference proceedings and journals

Combi2011 Conference Proceedings

Combi2011 is an international conference, where practice and research become one. It is hosted by three Universities of Applied Sciences: HAMK, LAMK and Laurea.The themes for 2011 were: “Learning and Working in a Virtual World”, “Doing Business in a Global World and Enhancing Entrepreneurship” and “Accelerating Innovations”

Designing adaptaptive user interfaces for enterprise resource planning systems for small enterprises

It is widely acknowledged that enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems suffer from complex user interfaces. The complexity of these user interfaces negatively affects the usability of these systems. Current research has shown that a need exists to improve the overall usability of ERP systems. This research proposes the use of adaptive user interfaces (AUIs) as a means of improving the overall usability of ERP systems. Research has shown that AUIs are capable of improving system usability by reducing user interface complexity and improving the overall user experience. The primary objective of this research was to determine how AUIs could be designed to improve the usability of ERP systems. An adaptation taxonomy, ERP system architecture (incorporating an AUI), a set of AUI components and a set of usability heuristics for ERP systems were proposed to support the design, development and evaluation of AUIs for ERP systems. The proposed adaptation taxonomy provides support for three types of adaptation: content adaptation, presentation adaptation and navigation adaptation. The proposed ERP system architecture is a three-tiered system architecture, consisting of a Presentation Layer (incorporating an AUI), an Application Layer and a Database Layer. The proposed set of AUI components comprise a user model, a task model and a dialog model. The set of proposed usability heuristics aims to identify usability issues of ERP systems within the areas of Navigation, Presentation, Task Support, Learnability and Customisation. An AUI prototype was developed based on selected adaptive techniques from the proposed adaptation taxonomy and selected components from the proposed system architecture. All of the proposed AUI components were implemented. The AUI prototype was developed for an existing ERP system, namely SAP Business One (SBO). This prototype was designed, in order to resolve the usability issues of SBO identified through the use of the proposed set of heuristics. The development of the AUI prototype was made possible through the use of a software development kit (SDK) provided with SBO. The AUI prototype made use of content adaptation, presentation adaptation and navigation adaptation in order to address the identified usability issues. An empirical evaluation was conducted on the AUI prototype to determine whether it provided any usability benefits over the standard SBO system. The results from the empirical evaluation revealed that the AUI presented usability benefits with regard to learnability and satisfaction. Users who used the AUI prototype were able to learn how to use the ERP system a lot quicker and were more satisfied than users of the standard SBO system. The successful implementation of the AUI prototype provided practical evidence that the proposed adaptation taxonomy and the proposed system architecture can be implemented. This research has provided empirical evidence that the use of AUIs can improve the usability of ERP systems. Future research has outlined several possibilities to utilise and enhance the proposed adaptation taxonomy, the ERP system architecture and ERP heuristics, for the purpose of furthering research within the area of AUIs for ERP systems