EJIS special issue on making enterprise systems work

European Journal of Information Systems (2005) 14, 107–109. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000534 This special issue of the European Journal of Information Systems presents a diverse collection of papers that address the very important issue of Making Enterprise Systems Work. This issue is largely concerned with how technology can facilitate, support, and enable the automation and integration of the enterprise. Billions of dollars are spent each year collectively by companies from all industries in an attempt to integrate people, process, technology, and knowledge. Over the past 15 years, organisations have in increasing quantities turned to the adoption of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution to tackle these integration issues. Armies of consultants would seize these organisations and a battle would pursue. When the smoke cleared, there was quite a bit of confusion and chaos: Is it over? Was it successful? Is there value? What happens next? In this process, it was quickly realised that there is no panacea for our enterprise integration challenges, not even ERP. It seems that the majority of organisations have accepted popular ERP concepts such as a common database, standardisation, and best practice to reorganise and consolidate many different parts of their organisation. In many cases, especially the larger enterprise, it was found that ERP was being deployed across the organisation and across the globe. But in all too many cases, many companies still have significant functions and resources that are not under the broad ERP umbrella. In these cases, enterprises are once again challenged by the quest for integration and the need to determine how best to achieve enterprise integration given the current infrastructure. The papers in the Special Issue on Making Enterprise Systems Work all deal with particular issues related to Enterprise Integration. On reflection, it seems appropriate to now think of Enterprise Systems (ES), not as one mega-ERP system, but as a collection of systems, continuously evolving, striving to become the perfectly integrated system, and also constantly challenged to change by the overwhelming need to keep up with technologies and business practices. This issue offers a number of diverse views and research methodologies to address the issue of how to make ES work. The Guest Editors hope the reader can find knowledge and value in the articles.