A managers view of critical success factors necessary for the successful implementation of ERP

Abstract

Organisations look to enterprise resource planning (ERP) as a significant strategic tool of competition. ERP plays an important role in today's enterprise management and is beginning to be the backbone of organisations. Although ERP has been recognised as a useful tool, in practice, there are many difficulties in compelling people to implement it effectively. In this case, how to help ERP's future effective implementation has already attracted the attention of several researchers.

The goal of this research was to increase the knowledge base regarding Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software implementation in the public sector. To this end, factors regarding benefits sought through ERP system implementation and critical factors surrounding successful ERP implementation were identified. In addition, the perception of project team members' satisfaction with modules implemented and their concerns about implementing ERP software were identified in this study.

The results of this study provided recommendations for public sector organisations in order to increase their opportunity for successful ERP system implementation. However, there is no reason why this information cannot be considered to be useful to private sector organisations when considering ERP implementation projects.

The literature review and results of this study suggested that the benefits sought during ERP system implementation included increased standardisation, better reporting, and reduced operational costs were recognised as goals of ERP software implementation, with the overarching goal to improve efficiency. Factors that were important to successful ERP system implementations were top management support, knowledgeable and experienced project managers and knowledgeable and committed team members.

The study included recommendations for organisations to fully research ERP functionality prior to implementation, to implement strong change management, use other means of measuring return on investment, ensure employee buy-in and top management involvement and to avoid scope creep at all cost. In addition, a key element is to undertake some form of benchmarking exercise of existing systems prior to commencement as a measure of success of implementation of all or various elements of ERP.