Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1. Profiles of companies A, B, C and D
Canada Tunisia
Charecteristics
Company A Company B Company C Company D
Industry
Agrifood
Plastic products
Agrifood
Petrochemical
Employees
~ 500
~ 1000
~ 700
~400
Sales (Mln US)
> $160
> $160
> $90
> $100
Vendor
SAP
JDE
JDE
JDE
Go-live date
1997
2004
2000
1996 then 2006
Implementation approach
Big-Bang at the headquar-
ters and one plant then
phased by site
Big-Bang at the head-
quarters and 2 plants then
3
rd
plant
By module
Big-Bang
Motivations for ERP
adoption
Y2K problem; clients'
pressures; need for a sys-
tem that evolves with the
firm's requirements
Integration of financial
data; old system is out-
dated
Data centralization;
insuring tracking and
transparency
Part of a wider (pan Afri-
can) project for business
process standardization; in-
termediate stage towards a
higher performance system
economy and has, in parallel, been dynamically
developing its information technology (IT) infra-
structure (FIPA-Tunisia, 2007). Since signing the
free trade agreement with the European Union in
1995 to remove tariffs and other trade barriers on
the majority of consumer goods by 2008, manu-
facturing firms carried the burden of improving
their products and services, in terms of quality,
flexibility, reliability, and speed, in order to be able
to compete with firms in more advanced countries
(Yagoubi, 2004). Among other things, these firms
had to modernize their technologies and upgrade
their management and production methods and
practices. In order to improve their effectiveness
and flexibility, several Tunisian firms both large
and small and medium enterprises (SME) adopted
ERP systems.
Table 1 provides a brief description of the
characteristics of these companies
The primary source of data was the in-depth
interviews with at least five managers in each
company. The interviews aimed at probing the
interviewees about their firm's implementation
project, and their experience with the ERP system
and the ERP project. The bulk of the interview
then focused on the importance and the impact of
the suggested variables and on the identification
of new variables that the interviewees perceived
as necessary for a successful ERP assimilation.
The researcher and a research assistant, with
good knowledge of ERP and other IT systems,
conducted all the interviews. This allowed the
cases to be viewed from different perspectives.
Each interview lasted between 60 and 90 min-
utes, and was recorded and transcribed prior to
analysis. The information obtained through the
interviews was supplemented by information
from internal and external organizational docu-
ments. The transcription reports were reviewed
with the interviewees and the research assistant
to verify the convergence of the collected data.
The data was then reduced to codes in categories
that corresponded to the set of new and originally
identified themes.
cAse AnALYsis
erp Attributes
Innovation attributes such as ease of use, rela-
tive advantage, and compatibility are strongly
acknowledged in innovation literature to have
an impact on the technology's diffusion and the
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