Critical Issues Across the ERP Life Cycle in Small-and-Medium- Sized Enterprises: Experiences from a Multiple Case Study

Abstract The paper reports on a multiple case study conducted in five Small-and-Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). These companies have implemented ERP systems and the focus is on the critical issues, activities and key actors across different stages of the ERP life cycle in these enterprises. SMEs have less resources and competencies about complex ERP systems compared to larger companies. Thus ERP projects have proved to be risky and costly for SMEs. SMEs can easily be an easy prey for experienced vendors and consultants and end up with a system far from what they expected.

[1]  Walter Skok,et al.  Evaluating enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems using an interpretive approach , 2001, SIGCPR '01.

[2]  Toni M. Somers,et al.  The impact of critical success factors across the stages of enterprise resource planning implementations , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[3]  Ondrej Zach,et al.  ERP System Customization In SMEs: A Multiple Case Study , 2011, PACIS.

[4]  Jeanne W. Ross,et al.  Learning to Implement Enterprise Systems: An Exploratory Study of the Dialectics of Change , 2002, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[5]  Geoff Walsham,et al.  Doing interpretive research , 2006, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[6]  Matthew B. Miles,et al.  Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook , 1994 .

[7]  Melody Y. Kiang,et al.  Evaluating Mid-Level ERP Software , 2004, J. Comput. Inf. Syst..

[8]  Ondrej Zach,et al.  ERP Systems in SMEs: A Literature Review , 2011, 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[9]  Petri Hallikainen,et al.  Enterprise size matters: objectives and constraints of ERP adoption , 2007, J. Enterp. Inf. Manag..

[10]  Toni M. Somers,et al.  A taxonomy of players and activities across the ERP project life cycle , 2004, Inf. Manag..

[11]  Ruey-Shun Chen,et al.  Role Negotiation and Interaction: An Exploratory Case Study of the Impact of Management Consultants on ERP System Implementation in SMEs in Taiwan , 2008, Inf. Syst. Manag..

[12]  Albert Y.T. Sun,et al.  Achievement assessment for enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementations based on critical success factors (CSFs) , 2005 .

[13]  M. Markus,et al.  The Enterprise System Experience— From Adoption to Success , 2000 .

[14]  T. Davenport.  Putting the enterprise into the enterprise system. , 1998, Harvard business review.