Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become a de facto standard for integrating business functions. But an obvious question arises: if every business is using the same socalled “Vanilla” software (e.g. an SAP ERP system) what happens to the competitive advantage from implementing IT systems? If we discard our custom-built legacy systems in favour of enterprise systems do we also jett...

Enterprise resource planning systems have required significant upgrades in the 21st century as many of the systems obtained prior to 2000 have become outdated due to vendor changes. SAP and Oracle have emerged as dominant vendors, and SAP has announced discontinuance of support in the future for its primary R/3 system. This study reports interviews with the chief information officers (CIOs) of ...

The design and ongoing management of an Enterprise Architecture is widely accepted as an established way of managing an organisation’s complexities in relating business and Information Technology capabilities. While the focus of related research is predominantly on frameworks, tools and methodologies, only limited attention has been given to understand and improve the value realisation process ...

We present a proof-of-concept prototype that demonstrates novel collaborative features for supporting enterprise system users. The purpose of the prototype is to illustrate the implementation of design principles derived from field studies of Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) users. Its novel features are designed to improve the users’ understanding of the business context of their inte...

An underestimated aspect of the study of ERP implementations is the longer term impact of these highly integrated applications on the way that managers work. This paper reports on the changes to managerial decision processes arising from an ERP implementation four years prior to the study. Using the managers’ own description of their goals as a lens, the objective was to gain an understanding o...

Enterprise Systems are high cost propositions as they place tremendous demands on organization’s time and resources. Successful investments in Enterprise Systems require a sound understanding of the acquisition and implementation processes of these enterprise-wide systems. The ERP Implementation literature contains many examples of organizations that have implemented successfully. However, ther...

This paper describes how a traditional face-to-face course on enterprise systems is transformed into a blended learning course. Therefore the relevant theoretical background on blended learning and on a multi-perspective approach to enterprise systems is given. Furthermore the case study of an ERP e-learning project called “ERPeL” at the Saarland University is depicted. The components of the ER...

ion and generalizationRelationship between particulars of a specific study to abstract categories, theories, ideas, concepts (differentiates from anecdotes)Relate data to abstract theoretical assumptionsCase study findings are analyzed and related to literature 5. The principle of dialogical reasoningConfrontation of researcher’s prejudices (ex ante lens) with emerging dataM...

From an internal audit perspective, enterprise systems have created new opportunities and challenges in managing internal as well as external risks. In this work, we report results of a survey that examines internal auditors’ ability to identify and manage operational, financial, technological, compliance and other risks as the organization migrates to an ERP environment. Our findings show that...