Enterprise resource planning: Managing the implementation process

Over the past few years, thousands of companies around the world have implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Implementing an ERP system is generally a formidable challenge, with a typical ERP implementation taking anywhere from one to five years. The story of the success of ERP systems in achieving the stated objectives is mixed. Some companies have had very successful implementations while others have struggled. This paper empirically investigates and identifies key differences in the approaches used by companies that managed their implementations on-time and/or on/under-budget versus the ones that did not using data collected through a survey of US manufacturing companies that have implemented ERP systems. Logistic regressions are used to classify on-time and on/under-budget firm groups based on the survey responses and to identify the significant variables that contribute to on-time and on/under-budget implementation performance. The results indicate that many different factors ranging from pre-implementation planning to system configuration influence performance, which managers should be sensitive about when implementing major systems like ERP.