An Investigation of Critical Success Factors for the Implementation of Enterprises Resource Planning System in Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises

Enterprise resource planning system (ERP) has become one of the most important application information technologies for enterprise. However, the implementation of ERP system in Chinese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is not very successful. The basic purpose of this paper is to find and verify the critical success factors (CSFs) of ERP implementation in Chinese enterprises under the specific context in China. Based on an extensive literature review, four CSFs are defined, namely top management support, business process re-engineering, change management and external professional support. This paper investigates 53 enterprises that have implemented the ERP system in the form of email questionnaire. The questionnaire is based on the previous mature scale to measure CSF, ERP system success and situational factors. Data is analysed by using SPSS and statistical tests are conducted using multiple regression methods. The results confirm that the change management, business process re-engineering, and top management support are the main CSFs for the implementation of ERP system in Chinese SMEs, among which the role of change management is the most prominent, and Chinese cultural characteristics make it the most critical factor. In addition, the support of consulting company is confirmed to have no significant impact on ERP system implementation of Chinese SMEs. Reengineering the business process before ERP implementation is conducive to increasing the reorganization process and the success of ERP systems. Based on the empirical research, this paper puts forward some suggestions to Chinese SMEs on how to cultivate the capability of ERP implementation, whether to hire ERP consulting companies, how to select ERP system implementation strategies and how to handle management practice issues