Relevance of Total Quality Management (TQM) or Business Excellence Strategy Implementation for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) – A Conceptual Study

Organizations worldwide have been exploring ways to improve business practices to gain competitive edge. One of the most important technological innovations of the last decade has been the emergence of ERP solutions. But implementation of ERP is not just a technological challenge. It’s a socio-technological endeavor, which mandates modifying existing applications and redesigning critical business processes to facilitate ERP implementation. Hence, there are organizational and cultural issues, which determine the success of ERP implementation. The main objective of implementing an ERP system is to integrate the organizations business processes and operations for improved business results. But not all organizations have been successful in the ERP implementation. The aim of this paper is to understand the importance of Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy or Business Excellence Models-Strategy Implementation for ERP Implementation within organizations. There is very little research done where the concept of TQM as a philosophy or Business Excellence strategy implementation, which integrates the concept of ERP implementation. This paper is an attempt to integrate the concept of ERP implementation within a broader perspective of TQM as a part of corporate strategy in an organization. Business Excellence strategy implementation, encompassing the concept of ERP implementation is also discussed. The paper builds upon the foundation on the major research done in the area of TQM or Business Excellence. The concerns and issues for TQM and ERP implementation are discussed. A small case study, of the first company in India to get the coveted Deming Prize based on the integrated Japanese Model for Business Excellence, Sundaram Clayton, is discussed in the paper. The paper attempts to give a holistic perspective of ERP implementation as a part of TQM or Business Excellence Strategy Implementation.