Towards an ERP life-cycle costs model

Many organizations have adopted ERP systems, but most of them are not aware of the total costs associated with them, and they only consider the costs related with the software acquisition. This article is an exploratory study that sets out to identify other costs related to ERP systems during their life-cycle. Through the different phases of the life-cycle we define and categorize the various costs. The costs were classified as tanglible and intangible. We also describe a case study where the costs related to the three initial phases of the life-cycle were analyzed: acquistion, implementation, and usage and maintenance. Finally, some conclusions are drawn and we pose some research questions for further work.