Success and failure factors of adopting SAP in ERP system implementation

Purpose – Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are software packages that allow companies to have more real time visibility and control over their operations. This paper aims to investigate and analyze common circumstances that occur within most ERP projects, and determines the areas that are key to success versus those that contribute to failure.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a content analysis of published articles reporting SAP implementations in 44 companies.Findings – Identifies six common factors that are indicative of successful or non‐successful SAP implementations. It has been found that the lack of appropriate culture and organizational (internal) readiness as the most important factor contributing to failure of SAP implementations in 15 companies. The presence of project management approaches and appropriate culture and organizational (internal) readiness are the most important factors contributing to the success of SAP implementations in 29 organizations.Research lim...

[1]  Aleda V. Roth,et al.  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Competence Constructs: Two-Stage Multi-Item Scale Development and Validation , 2002, Decis. Sci..

[2]  C. G. Cegielski,et al.  Enterprise resource planning systems implementation success , 2006, Int. J. Inf. Syst. Chang. Manag..

[3]  Klaus Krippendorff,et al.  Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology , 1980 .

[4]  Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah,et al.  Critical factors for successful implementation of enterprise systems , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[5]  Adel M. Aladwani.  Change management strategies for successful ERP implementation , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[6]  Marinos Themistocleous,et al.  ERP and application integration: Exploratory survey , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[7]  Heeseok Lee,et al.  Enterprise resource planning survey of Korean manufacturing firms , 2006 .

[8]  Kent Sandoe,et al.  Enterprise Integration , 2001 .

[9]  Zhenyu Huang,et al.  ERP implementation issues in advanced and developing countries , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[10]  Lorin J. May.  Major Causes of Software Project Failures , 2007 .

[11]  Shivnath Babu,et al.  Enterprise Applications , 1997 .

[12]  Linying Dong,et al.  Modeling top management influence on ES implementation , 2001, Bus. Process. Manag. J..

[13]  Thomas H. Davenport,et al.  Mission Critical: Realizing the Promise of Enterprise Systems , 2000 .

[14]  Malcolm Higgs.  All Systems Go , 1988 .

[15]  Eli Schragenheim,et al.  ERP : Tools, Techniques, and Applications for Integrating the Supply Chain, Second Edition , 2003 .