Managing the full ERP life-cycle: Considerations of maintenance and support requirements and IT governance practice as integral elements of the formula for successful ERP adoption
✍ Scribed by Chuck C.H. Law; Charlie C. Chen; Bruce J.P. Wu
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 321 KB
- Volume
- 61
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0166-3615
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The successful implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can create competitive advantages for companies which adopt them. With product life span becoming increasingly shorter, the installation of an ERP system alone cannot sustain competitive advantage unless it is properly maintained and allowed to evolve to satisfy new business requirements. In other words, the perspectives and practices of project management must be extended to encompass post-implementation activities in the ERP lifecycle. Maintenance and support (M&S) services, as an intrinsic part of an ERP system, can improve its quality and extend its life span. High quality M&S can result in the system having a profound and lasting impact on adopters' competitive advantage [17].
The extant academic and practitioner literature centers mostly on adoption and implementation issues, ranging from ERP-process fit, business process re-engineering (BPR), and implementation methodologies to organizational impacts [26]. Post-implementation issues are as important as matters concerning adoption, yet they are often under-researched [26]. Such issues encompass ongoing requirements, change management, user support, and maintenance and upgrade of ERP systems. As Glass and Vessey [14] point out, the total post-implementation cost, including maintenance, of a piece of software could be as high as 70% of the total cost, and annual M&S could amount to 25% of the cost of implementation. This shows how important M&S is to ERP as well as to other types of software systems. It is therefore critical for companies and other stakeholders to fully understand and manage maintenance issues so as to devise appropriate measures to