Unleashing the Potential of SCM: Adoption of ERP in Large Danish Enterprises

This article argues that with the present state of enterprise resource planning (ERP) adoption by the companies, the potential benefits of supply chain management (SCM) and integration is about to be unleashed. This article presents the results and the implications of a survey on ERP adoption in the 500 largest Danish enterprises. The study is based on telephone interviews with ERP managers in 88.4% of the “top 500” enterprises in Denmark. Based on the survey, the article suggests the following four propositions: (i) ERP has become the pervasive infrastructure; (ii) ERP has become a contemporary technology; (iii) ERP adoption has matured; and (iv) ERP adoption is converging towards a dominant design. Finally, the article discusses the general implications of the surveyed state of practice on the SCM research challenges. Consequently we argue that research needs to adjust its conceptions of the ERP concept towards ERP II in order to accommodate to the emerging practices.