ERP implementation approach in defender organizations: an empirical study.

• Author: Tandon, Adhir
• Position: Enterprise Resource Planning - Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications utilize technologies that automate, integrate and streamline operations and interdepartmental co-ordination. Businesses with fully utilized ERP systems leverage technology to drive performance and workflow optimization, create competitive advantage, increase customer satisfaction, reduce IT costs and grow revenues.

   Implementing a new ERP system is a complex process requiring commitment from all company departments, involvement of key management, and dedicated financial investment. Many times, businesses expand processes without considering the effective use of ERP system capabilities. The performance of ERP system is critical to the operation of business. Organizations are in a constant flux of growth and change when it comes to people, processes and technology. Overall an ERP system is expected to improve both backbone and front-end functions simultaneously. In this paper we give a framework that seeks to relate ERP implementation approach to strategy of organizations.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

   Organizations want to improve their competitiveness by implementing and investing in high information technology, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems (Grabski & Leech, 2006). An ERP (Kumar and Van Hillegersberg, 2000) is a system that "integrates information and information based processes within and across functional areas in an organization". By implementing an ERP system an organizational change take place (Harwood, 2003). The goal by having an ERP system implemented is that integrated data and business processes from different departments will be gathered in one single computer system (Coffin and Murray, 2001).

   The benefits of using an ERP system are as follows: (Harwood, 2003) It gives ability to handle different transactions, maintain records, and provide real time information and also facilitate the planning and control functions. An ERP system is a generic solution and its design reflects a series of assumptions about how the companies operate in general. The ambition with implementing the system is to make the daily work more efficient (Davenport, 1998).

   It is not always easy to implement an ERP system; many things can go wrong (Tatsiopoulos, Panayiotou, Kirytopoulos and Tsitsiriggos, 2003). It has been reported that the success of Information Technology (IT) implementation projects is dependent on technological issues like software and hardware. Implementation projects are also dependent on the design of new efficient processes and the utilization of human resources that will participate in new processes to be used within new IT solution. An implementation...