Interpreting Stakeholder Roles in ERP Implementation Projects: a Case Study

The implementation stage is usually a very critical step during the introduction of ERP systems. Although having many commonalities with other IS projects, ERP implementation projects differ in many ways from other projects by being so comprehensive from the organizational point of view. ERP implementation is a difficult and complex decision, system implementation doesn‘t mean installing software it is much more than a technology adoption. Rather it involves people issues more than technological issues. Research indicates that people issues are more to blame for the unsuccessful efforts of ERP implementations(11) .In this paper, identifying stakeholders is emphasized as a key definitive step during the process of ERP implementation and if done improperly, will lead to failure of the implementation project.The impact of stakeholder’s interests on the project’s decisions was already highlighted as a critical issue in success of the ERP implementation(2). Consequently the aim of this study has been set to explore the way stakeholders influence on project’s decision processes. Accordingly, a qualitative research designed and through conducting a number of semi structured interviews with project stakeholders including project manager, selected project teams, functional managers, steering committee's member, and managing director, a certain amount of data on project’s decisions processes were gathered. Furthermore, the related project documents, including meeting memos, project charters and some technical reports were studied. It is seen that there is a fluidity between the stakeholder roles in each stage of implementation and accordingly, it is imperative that the stakeholder issues must be communicated or addressed throughout the lifecycle, not only in the initial stages. Keywords— ERP implementation, Stakeholder, Stakeholder Identification, Stakeholder roles.