Panel 3 Acquiring and Implementing ERP: The View from Business and Academia

Since the early days of computing, organizations have aspired to integrated, enterprise-wide information systems architectures. Through the years, these aspirations have been reflected in the quest for integrated MIS, enterprise-wide data models, and integrated databases. In recent years, with the increasing demand for process integration both within and across organizational and industry boundaries, this quest has gained further momentum. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, such as SAP, BaaN, Peoplesoft, and Oracle, are a recent business response to this quest. By providing integrated packaged solutions, not only do they provide an integrated system architecture for the organizations’ information processing needs, they also claim to provide ready-made “best-of-the-breed” solutions for particular lines of businesses. Furthermore, given their enterprise-wide scope and extensive impact on organizational and interorganizational business practices, the acquisition and implementation of these systems substantially affects both the organization and the nature of corporate IS practices and the responsibilities of corporate IS departments. While a number of high profile organizations such as Boeing, Mercedes-Benz, ABB, and Levi have recently adopted ERP as an integrated replacement for their enterprise-wide information infrastructure, recent press reports outline a number of issues with the adoption and implementation of ERP systems. Moreover, the adoption of so-called “best-of-breed” applications raises a number of questions about the appropriateness and value of cookie-cutter solutions to diverse organizational requirements