ERP System Procurement in SMEs – Two Contrasting Ways

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have originally been developed for large enterprises (LEs). However, market saturation, integration of supply chains and technology improvements have led to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have started adopting ERP systems. Though there is a focus shift from LEs to SMEs in the ERP market, most academic literature on ERP systems is based on findings from LEs. In addition, while the ERP system adoption life cycle consists of three stages: procurement, implementation and post-implementation, academic discourse has mostly focused on implementation or post-implementation phases, indicating a knowledge gap on ERP system procurement stage, especially regarding procurement of ERP system in SMEs. In this study it is investigated how ERP system procurement is carried out in SMEs. Based on academic literature a theoretical framework on ERP system procurement in SMEs was built, which then was used as a foundation for the empirical investigation. Based on empirical findings we have identified two contrasting ways for how SMEs carry out ERP system procurement. The main contribution is the identification and the explanation of how SMEs specificities affect an ERP system procurement process in SMEs. One implication from this contribution is that it shows that SMEs are a too broad class of organization to do research on