Enterprise Systems & Business Relationships : The Utilization of IT in the Business with Customers and Suppliers

This thesis deals with how companies utilize their enterprise systems in their business relationships. The study’s starting point is enterprise systems that basically are standardised information systems that the company can acquire from software vendors like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. Enterprise systems aim to integrate and manage all the company’s data and it can also be linked to its business partners. The thesis contains two case studies of how a focal company utilizes its enterprise system in their business relationships. To accomplish this, an analytical framework based upon the combination of an information systems (IS) and a business relationship perspective is developed and applied. The IS perspective follows an ‘ensemble view of technology’ approach which describes the use of information systems as embedded in a both technical and social context. The business relationship perspective is founded in empirical studies of industrial companies. Basically, business relationships are unique and based on the companies’ exchanges. It also involves behavioural elements as trust, commitment, adaptations and interdependencies between the partners. The two case studies cover the business relationships between ten companies and the character of the studied business relationships varies. The results show that enterprise systems are mainly focused on the companies’ internal activities. The exchanges in the business relationships are either carried out without the enterprise system or are supported by some complementary information system. Enterprise systems are thus mainly seen as production systems. This can be explained by the heritage from former material and resource planning (MRP) systems. An alternative explanation can be that business relationships are unique and require continuous adaptations and a mutual orientation. Enterprise systems require structural data rendering them difficult to use for the activities of a business relationship. The users then develop other, individual, applications that handle what is needed in their ongoing business. The threat is that information can be lost on a company level. The challenge is therefore to investigate the complementary information systems functions to see if it is possible to extend the enterprise system to include them. To be worth its epithet, the enterprise system must facilitate all the business activities found in the companies business relationships