An application of multicriteria analysis for Enterprise Resource Planning software selection in a Greek industrial company

This paper presents an application of multicriteria analysis in a large Greek company for the selection of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. The limited time available in most of the companies for software selection, the inability to make fast but sound decisions on IT issues and the luck of technical expertise in ERP functionality often results in an undocumented or even irrational final decision. As a consequence, the purchase of expensive software ends up to be affected by issues such as personal acquaintances, sporadic information, fashion or intuition. Taking into account all the existing practical constraints in the Greek industry due to the limited existence of resources, a practical and easy-to-use methodological approach was developed, using the typical principles of multicriteria analysis for the software selection and implementer selection process. The objective of the approach is to provide an easy way to support the final decision in the selection problem in a documented manner. The practical application of the proposed approach is presented in a real case study of a Greek company, emphasising the process, organisational and computational dimensions of the selection.