Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
•
User involvement at a stage of definition of
the company's ERP system needs,
In the general study we are developing different
techniques of analysis, revision of the literature,
interviews with groups of interest, policymakers,
and academics, consultancy firms and final user
firms operating in the Spanish market.
In this exploratory work we present the percep-
tions that a group of firms that have implemented an
ERP system in the last 10 years on how important
they consider de factors we describe in our model
as critical success factors in the final results of
EPR implementations and if in reality they have
achieved the objectives they were searching when
they decided the ERP implementation.
•
User participates in the implementation of
the ERP system.
the final external user
satisfaction (firm's customers)
It is inspired in the client consultation process (Hol-
land and Light, 1999; Al-Mashari et al., 2003). It
has to do with the training programs for the users
that the consultants surveyed have mentioned us.
A group of variables explaining final customer
satisfaction of the ERP deliverables must be taken
into account before implementing the ERP sys-
tem. The ERP system implementation demands
of great human and technical efforts to promote a
desired situation in which the final external user
feels much more satisfied.
Satisfaction and results are considered, vari-
ables of the greatest importance when defining
different styles of internalising ERP systems in
the firms. Maybe the most complete analysis is
developed by Ives and Olson (1983) where they
reach a complete methodology that allows measur-
ing the user satisfaction in IT use. This approach
has been mentioned in various analyses that study
the impact of information and communication
technologies in firms of different nature. It seems
to be a useful tool to be applied to the case or ERP
implementations due to the difficulty in measuring
such abstract term as satisfaction.
Methodology of the study
The design in the research attempted to find out
data about firm's expectations and experiences in
the use of ERP systems. For the selection of the
firms we have chosen the SABI database. SABI
is a financial database showing information of
the main Spanish and Portuguese companies,
elaborated by Dijk Electronic Publishing S.A
and distributed in Spain by Informa, Economic
Information, S.A. In the SABI version we have
used for the analysis (December 2007), there are
982.410 firms. We have selected all kinds of firms
differentiating them by the criteria of size and age.
The first part of the work consisted in deciding
the questions for the analysis. This part has taken
place from February till April 2008.
According to the model we have presented, we
have decided to ask about these characteristics,
the eMpiricAL AnALYsis
A. Characteristics dealing with the decision-
making policy of the firm in the ERP selec-
tion, implementation and use
1. Why did the firm decided to implement
an ERP?
2. Did the project have full managerial
support?
3. Did the firm establish clear procedures
for the re-engineering of business pro-
cesses in the firm?
The present work is part of a wider study sup-
ported and financed by The Spanish Innovation
Ministry, where we try to analyze the impact of
information and communication technologies in
different firm's innovation policies. The general
model analyses different entrepreneurial and in-
stitutional factors that promote the performance
of open innovation practices in firms.
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