ERP System Selection Criteria - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 320

From the information technology and infor-
mation systems perspective, coordination of the
individual elements of the overall set of business
processes in the company could be supported by
enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. ERP
systems also referred to as enterprise-wide systems
due to their enterprise-wide scope, provide seam-
less integration of all the information flows and
business processes across functional areas within
a company such as finance, human resources,
manufacturing, logistics, sales, distribution and
purchasing (Davenport, 1998; Markus & Tanis,
2000; Law & Ngai, 2007; Bernroider, 2008). Thus
ERP systems aim to integrate business processes
and ICT into a synchronized suite of procedures,
applications and metrics which goes over firms'
boundaries (Wier et al., 2007).
ERP systems can be considered as the most
important development in the corporate use of
information technology and are beginning to
become the backbone of any organization. ERP
systems have gained major prominence by en-
abling companies to streamline their operations,
leverage and integrate business data process
(Karsak & Ozogul, 2009).
In spite of added value promised to be gained
from ERP system adoption there are still many
companies - mostly small and medium sized,
which are only in a phase of consideration and
acquisition of ERP system. Due to their nature
(complexity and high implementation costs),
ERP systems used to be mostly implemented in
large companies. However, for the past few years,
ERP vendors also intensively face challenges in
providing ERP systems, especially tailored for
the needs of small and medium sized companies
(Malie et al., 2008).
The reasons for this trend lie in a saturation of
the market, as many large organizations have al-
ready implemented an ERP system. There are also
increasing possibilities and need for the integration
of systems between organizations (pressures of

large organizations). The other reason also lies in
the availability of relatively inexpensive hardware
(Gable and Stewart, 1999).
The ERP systems' market consists of many
different products, services and methodologies,
not all of them applicable to different organizations
(Malie et al., 2008). We acknowledge importance
of ERP system readiness assessment addressed
by Razmi, Sangari and Ghodsi (2009), and im-
portance of training in the actual implementation
process investigated by Plaza and Rohlf (2008).
During the ERP system selection process, organi-
zations need to consider different criteria related
to ERP systems. Knowing the importance of these
criteria could help companies to select more suit-
able ERP system and to avoid mistakes and large
costs of failed implementations.
In this chapter, the importance of ERP selection
criteria, which were investigated in companies in
Slovenia are presented. The research was done in
131 companies in 2007. Altogether 28 ERP selec-
tion criteria were identified and investigated. The
investigated criteria are grouped into the 4 groups:
ERP benefits criteria, system quality criteria,
vendor related criteria and ERP package criteria.
Beside the criteria importance also companies
characteristics - company size, implemented in-
formation strategy in the company, representation
of the IT department at the board level and growth
of the company - impact on importance of ERP
selection criteria is presented.
The findings of this chapter are useful for
organizations considering the ERP system imple-
mentation to avoid possible large costs of failed
implementations and for ERP system providers to
better understand different customers' needs and
expectations. On the other hand, the chapter does
not focus on project management issues. These
were investigated by e.g. Soja (2006).
The rest of the chapter is organized as follows:
the next section provides review of ERP system
selection criteria. In the following section, data