Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning System - theoretical research approach and empirical evaluation in two cases

During the last decade, implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has become one of the major challenges for many enterprises. ERP systems are large software packages, which are meant to cover most, if not all, of the information and information processing needs of an enterprise. Implementation of an ERP system is often a complex and painful process, the effects of which can be great both in good and bad. In this study I (a) create a new tentative research approach to study ERP system implementations, which is based on earlier research and methods. This new tentative research approach is specially designed for implementations of ERP systems and tries to cover the most important aspects of an implementation of ERP system. After creating a new tentative research approach to study ERP system implementations, I (b) use my new tentative research approach to carefully analyse two ERP systems implementation cases. Research method for this paper is a tailored case study. I have chosen two case companies to represent polar types of an implementation. This way I can represent the range of alternatives attached to ERP system implementation process, which I wouldn’t be able to do with a single case study. One of the case companies implemented ERP-systems on the ‘as is’ basis, while other one made a huge effort to tailor it’s ERP system to gain a better fit to company’s processes. Other differences in implementation decisions between the case companies were also noticeable. Both of the case companies used different implementation models and different approaches to implementation process. Yet I was able to find all the elements, at least in some extent, of ERP system implementation presented in my research approach. This supports the validity and appropriateness of new research approach presented in this paper.