A study of the factors that impact the outcome of an ERP implementation

Abstract

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation failures, which are fairly widespread, cutting across geographies and products, represent an important problem in Information Sciences (IS) research and practice. The key research gaps emerging from the literature study were: a lack of systematic studies on ERP success in India; inadequate classification of Critical Success Factors (CSFs); inadequate understanding of the way in which these causal factors impact ERP outcomes; no validated scales for their measurement of the causal factors; lack of a predictive tool that would alert managements on failing ERP projects. This research attempts to bridge these gaps. This research follows a hybrid approach of a qualitative study and a quantitative study. This included: an Exploratory Phase consisting of two case studies one a failed ERP implementation followed by a successful one in the same organization ; focus group discussions; multi judge sorting process, pre-test and a pilot study; a Confirmatory Phase that consisted of a field survey and SEM analysis and an Analysis and Modeling Phase. This research has made several important contributions. It extends the work of earlier researchers in the measurement of ERP success in a new context-India. Though India is a large and important market, to the best of our knowledge there has not been any systematic study of ERP implementation in India. As part of the research, various strategies to improve ERP implementation success were explored. The development of the Project Vulnerability Index (PVI) scale for measuring ex ante causal factors for ERP outcome is an important contribution. While there are scales for measuring success, there are no scales to measure the causal factors that lead to success. In summary this research adds to the body of knowledge regarding ERP implementations, provides guidelines to practice on better managing ERP projects and aids research by throwing light on the causal mechanisms that lead to negative project outcomes. newline