Evaluation of ERP Implementation: A Multi-perspective Approach

ERP-implementation is and has been a practical challenge to most industrial enterprises for several years. In the literature, we have seen cases of extremely successful implementation as well as the opposite. However, practical experiences tell us that companies still are having difficulties in assessing and evaluating ERP-implementation. Without having this reference, learning is quite complicated. Quite a lot of theory is written about critical success factors in regard to ERP-implementation. The literature, however, does not provide enterprises with any operational framework for evaluating the implementation. The purpose of this paper is to offer a framework for evaluation of ERP-implementation in relation to the strategic development of the company. First, the paper defines the ERP-implementation process in the context of the new business challenges that industrial enterprises experience. Then it is argued that implementation must be approached from several perspectives and the inadequacy of the existing literature about critical success factors is discussed. Consequently, a new multi-perspective framework for studying ERP-implementation is proposed and a specific industrial case is analyzed using this framework. The framework takes the different stakeholders of the implementation into account and presents three different perspectives from which an implementation can be evaluated; an organizational, a business and a technological. It is concluded that the multi-perspective approach contributes to studying, analyzing and evaluating ERP-implementation within a broader perspective.