Towards a Systematic, Cost-Effective Approach for ERP Selection

Existing experiences indicate that one of the most prominent reasons that some ERP implementations fail is related to selecting an improper ERP package. Among those important factors resulting in inappropriate ERP selections, one is to ignore preliminary activities that should be done before the evaluation of ERP packages. Another factor yielding these unsuitable selections is that usually organizations employ prolonged and costly selection processes in such extent that sometimes the process would never be finalized or sometimes the evaluation team might perform many key final activities in an incomplete or inaccurate way due to exhaustion, lack of interest or out-of-date data. In this paper, a systematic approach that recommends some activities to be done before and after the main selection phase is introduced for choosing an ERP package. On the other hand, the proposed approach has utilized some ideas that accelerates the selection process at the same time that reduces the probability of an erroneous final selection.

Authors:

• Hassan Haghighi
• Omid Mafi

Keywords:

• enterprise resource planning
• evaluation and selectionof ERP packages
• organizational readiness for employing ERP
• evaluationlists.

References:

[1] Haghighi H., Shahhosseini H.S., and Mobasheri M.: Enterprise Resource
Planning Software: Development, Evaluation, Selection, and Implementation
(In Persian), Nashre Nikpey, in print, 2009.
[2] Bernroider E. and Koch S.: Differences in Characteristics of the ERP
System Selection Process between Small or Medium and Large Organizations,
Proc. of the 6th Americas Conference on Information Systems
(AMCIS 2000), 2000.
[3] Brehm L., Heinzl A., and Markus M.L.: Tailoring ERP Systems: A
Spectrum of Choices and their Implications, Proc. of the 34th Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences, 2001.
[4] Calisir F. and Calisir F.: The Relation of Interface Usability Characteristics,
Perceived Usefulness, and Perceived Ease of Use to End-
User Satisfaction with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems,
Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 505-515, 2004.
[5] Grabski S. V. and Leech S. A.: Complementary Controls and ERP
Implementation Success, International Journal of Accounting Information
Systems, vol. 8, 2007.
[6] Karsak E. E. and O¨ zogul C. O.: An Integrated Decision Making Approach
for ERP System Selection, Expert Systems with Applications, vol. 36, pp.
660-667, 2009.
[7] Porter-Roth B.: Request for Proposal: A Guide to Effective RFP Development,
Addison-Wesley, 2002.
[8] Sudzina F. and Johansson B.: Finding ERP Requirements that Support
Strategic Management in Organizations, Proc. of Academic International
Conf., Increasing Competitiveness or Regional, National and International
Markets Development - New Challenges, 2007.