Evaluation of Erp Investment and Business Benefits |
Enterprise ResourcePlanning systems (ERP) projects often lead to disappointing outcomes, evendownright failures, which is not in keeping with the vast investments they represent. Manyexplanations have been provided, but it seems to be difficult to move beyondthe specificities of each case study of failure. In any case, the publicationof long lists of CSFs for ERP implementations has failed to make any impact onthe difficulties faced by organizations. In this paper, we propose that it isthe mismatch between the very ambitious goals of firms and the means they applythat is the primary cause of their failure to obtain benefits from their ERP projects. In particular, seeking strategic benefits andtreating the ERP project as a technical venture is bound to fail. Using fourcase studies of typical ERP implementations, we seek to explain why firms continue to struggle with integrated systems despite their best intentions and efforts.