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A. N. Parr
School of Business Systems, Monash University
Clayton Victoria 3168, Australia
Email: anne.parr@infotech.monash.edu.au
Dr. G. Shanks
Department of Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are (ERP) is the generic name [9, 1, 4, 11] of this new class of
enterprise wide systems which, because of their integration, packaged application software The major advantage of
automate all of a company's business processes. They have these systems is that they provide a common integrated
rapidly become the de facto industry standard for software platform for business processes. These systems
replacement of legacy systems. Because there is evidence have two important features: firstly, they facilitate a causal
that the overwhelming majority of ERP implementations connection between a visual model of business processes
exceed their budget and their time allocations, researchers and the software implementation of those processes, and
have begun to analyse ERP implementation in Case Studies secondly they ensure a level of integration, data integrity
in order to provide an implementation framework which and security, which is not easily achievable with multiple
maximises efficiencies. In this paper we argue that the software platforms. The vendors of fully integrated
concept of an ERP implementation is not a generic software offer software that is capable of processing all
concept, and we present a taxonomy of ERP commercial functions of any company, no matter how
implementation categories. The evidence for the taxonomy large, diverse or geographically disparate the company’s
is drawn from previous studies and from a series of components may be. Moreover, the software is not limited
structured interviews with practitioners who are expert in to specific industry sectors: it can be configured for retail
ERP implementation. We further argue that understanding industries, mining companies, banks, airlines etc. ERP
the differences between these categories is crucial if market leaders [14] are SAP AG (39% of the world market)
researchers are to do case study research of ERP Oracle Corporation, Peoplesoft Inc and Baan Co.
implementation; otherwise, comparisons are being made Early accounts of ERP implementation [2, 3]
between ERP implementation projects which are distinguished only between a Phased and a Big Bang
essentially incommensurate. Conclusions based on approach. More recent studies have highlighted the many
incommensurate cases are inherently invalid. The differences between ERP implementations. In 1998 Ross
taxonomy of implementation categories is also presented as [15] emphasised that there was variance both in motivation
a tool for implementation managers to delineate the scope for an implementation and in design decisions made in the
of an ERP implementation project prior to in depth planning stage of an implementation. Holland, Light and
specification of the project processes. Gibson [10] draw attention to the many different
approaches to ERP implementation, at the level both of
technical factors and in terms of the business scope of the
project. In this paper we argue that the concept of an ERP
implementation is not a generic concept, and in particular
1. Introduction that:
1. The traditional distinction between a Phased and a Big
ERP systems are comprehensive packaged software Bang implementation is too coarse to codify the range
solutions which aim for total integration of all business of actual approaches to ERP implementation which are
processes and functions. Enterprise Resource Planning extant in industry and
2. ERP implementations fall into three broad categories, has been made, and the initial resources are allocated, there
which we call "Comprehensive", "Middle Road" and is little scope for retreat: in 42 implementations which were
"Vanilla." These categories are offered as archetypes documented in this study, only one abandoned the project.
of ERP implementation. A combination of Most companies both over-spent their budget and exceeded
implementation characteristics serves to place an their time allocation, but once committed they felt impelled
implementation within one of these three broad to continue. The taxonomy is envisaged as a tool for
categories. ERP implementations differ with respect to management which should assist them to place their
several key characteristics: in this paper these are anticipated implementation into a practical perspective, and
described as the Physical Scope, the BPR Scope, provide them with a way of seeing, early on, the
Technical Scope, Module implementation Strategy, dimensions and consequences of key decisions regarding
and the Resource Allocation. the characteristics of their implementation.
The categories and the characteristics together provide a The taxonomy should also provide assistance to
taxonomy for the classification of ERP implementation researchers who engage in case study research of ERP
projects. We recognise that theoretically there are implementation. It should be useful first in multi-case
numerous combinations of these characteristics and so research in that it facilitates identification of comparable
there are numerous types of ERP implementation cases. Further it provides a foundation for future research to
approaches. However there is a positive reason to try to verify the applicability of the taxonomy in fluctuating
delineate archetypal approaches to ERP implementation. organizational circumstances.
Understanding the differences between these categories is
crucial if researchers and project managers are to
understand the process of designing a maximally efficient 2. Research Approach
implementation; otherwise, comparisons are being made
between ERP implementation projects which are This research is a synthesis of previous studies and a
essentially non-commensurate. Such comparisons are series of interviews with highly experienced practitioners
inherently invalid. Further, although ERP systems are now of ERP implementation. The previous studies include those
the standard for replacement of legacy systems [6], over of Bancroft [2.3], Ross [15], Holland, Light and Gibson
90% of ERP implementations exceed both their budget and [10] and Parr, Shanks and Darke [13].
the allocated time frame [12], so a tool that assists in the Structured interviews were conducted with a total of 10
determination of realistic project scope is crucial. implementation Project Managers, who between them had
The evidence for the delineation of categories has been participated in 42 ERP implementation projects. The
gained from recent studies of ERP implementation and participants had been involved in ERP implementation
from the experience of ERP senior implementation projects in Australia and the USA. They consisted of
managers, who between them have managed 42 ERP Project Managers from within implementation companies,
implementation projects within Australia and the United and Project Managers and Senior Consultants from ERP
States. In structured interviews, the implementation Consultancy companies. The range of their experience
projects in which they had participated were rigorously varied. One participant had ERP implementation
documented. An analysis of the documentation supports the experience both in Australia and in the USA. The most
proposition that there are three broad categories of ERP experienced practitioner was Project Manager for 8
implementation. Each of the three broad categories is implementations. On average, participants had been
delineated by key characteristics such as the level of involved in 4.2 ERP implementations. Such practitioners
envisaged BPR, the range and type of module selection, are highly sought after in industry, often after only one
and decisions concerning the strategy for linking the ERP implementation experience, and so access to them is
with legacy systems. Each of these may be inter-connected. limited. The ERP systems that they had implemented
For example the rationale for the implementation may included SAP R/2, SAP R/3, Peoplesoft 7, Peoplesoft 7.5,
imply facts about the level of BPR, and/or the number and and Oracle. The range of industries represented in the
nature of modules selected implementations of these participants was (deliberately)
This research has implications for practitioners who extensive and various. They included Retail, Construction,
wish to successfully implement these systems in that it Oil, Airline and Chemical industries. It should be noted that
categorises implementation approaches in a way that several of the very large companies had had several
reflects the experience of recent studies and expert implementation projects. All companies were large and
practitioners. As such this taxonomy is envisaged as a tool many were multi-nationals. So the expertise of the
for management, particularly in the initial determination of interviewees’ represents ‘state of the art’ knowledge of
the project scope and required resource allocation. A CEO ERP systems implementation in a broad range of
who decides on an ERP implementation is deciding to international companies and industry sectors. A summary
devote huge resources to the project. ERP projects are of the participants and their experience is provided in Table
measured in millions of dollars. Once the initial decision 1 below.
what are liable to be the consequences of those decisions. the full functionality of the ERP may mean implementing
Senior management, who are frequently not IT people, are all or most of the 12 modules, together with
faced with difficulties in the planning stages of estimating implementation of an industry specific module.
the costs and resource allocation of ERP implementation. Additionally, because there are multiple sites, usually
The financial investment is both in the software package with independently evolved business processes, the scope
and in related services. These services include consulting, and level of BPR required is high. A further characteristic
training, and system integration [5]. In 1997 Gartner Group concerns the method of linking the ERP module to legacy
[8] reported that ‘companies spent $19 billion’ on ERP systems. This may be either the 'module-by-module' or
services [5]. The investment can also be measured in time. the 'full ERP' method. In the 'Module-by-module' method,
Implementation of the systems varies from six months to the process is to implement a module, then link it the
several years [2, 3] and requires considerable infrastructure legacy systems, then implement the next module, and link
and planning. The size of implementation project teams it to the legacy systems, and so on until all modules are
also varies with the scope of the project. For example, three implemented. The 'full ERP' method involves
hundred people worked on one company's eleven-month implementing all the required ERP modules and then
implementation in the United States. So Senior Managers linking the whole ERP to the legacy systems. The
need a systematic, structured way of approaching the ERP complexities described above imply large resource
implementation problem. This is the role of the taxonomy. allocation. One such implementation, for example, took
It categorizes archetypal implementation approaches, seven years, and the cost was measured in tens of millions
delineates the key characteristics of each of the types, and of dollars.
for each characteristic, shows the key choices which will
affect the implementation type, thus indicating its likely
scope, and required resource allocation. 4.1.2 Middle-road. This category is, as the name
suggests, mid-way between a Comprehensive and a
Vanilla implementation. Characteristically, there are
4. The Taxonomy multiple sites (although there may be only one extensive
The taxonomy consists of implementation categories site), and a major decision is to implement a selection
and implementation characteristics. The three archetypal only of core ERP modules. For example, with the SAP
categories are Comprehensive, Middle-road and Vanilla. R/3 system it might be decided to implement Financials,
Each of these is discussed below. The characteristics of Controlling and Asset management and Project systems.
each category are Physical Scope, the BPR Scope, The level of BPR is significant, but not as extensive as
Technical Scope, Module Implementation Strategy, and that required for a Comprehensive implementation. Such
Resource Allocation. Combinations of these characteristics systems may take 3-5 years to implement, and cost about
serve to place an implementation within one of the $A3M.
categories. More than one combination of characteristics
might result in the same category. 4.1.3 Vanilla This is the least ambitious and least
risky implementation approach. Typically, the
implementation is on one site only, and the number of
4.1 ERP Implementation Categories prospective system users is small (less than 100). A
decision is made to have core ERP functionality only, and
The data from the interviews indicates that there are to do minimal BPR in order to exploit fully the process
three archetypal implementation categories. An overview model built in to the ERP. This decision essentially is a
of their characteristics, and the range of combinations of decision to align company processes to the ERP rather
these, follows. After clarifying the three categories, we then than modify the ERP to reflect unique business processes.
discuss the characteristics which, in combination, place an These systems are the least complex, and typically they
implementation within one of the three categories. may be implemented in 6-12 months, and cost $A1-2M.
4.1.1 Comprehensive. This category represents the 4.2 ERP Implementation Characteristics
most ambitious implementation approach. Typically it
involves a multi-national company, which decides to The interviews together with the recent literature
implement an ERP in multiple sites, often across national revealed that ERP implementations differ significantly with
boundaries. Apart from the physical scope of the project, respect to several characteristics. These characteristics are
there is implementation of the full functionality of the discussed below.
ERP, and occasionally this may involve the 4.2.1 Physical Scope. An ERP implementation may
commissioning of industry specific modules. An ERP involve a single site, multiple sites within the same
such as SAP R/3 for example consists of 12 main geographic region, or multiple sites scattered across
modules, each with a range of sub-modules. Accepting
national boundaries. Further, the number of users of the with Christmas vacations, and because there were delays in
ERP system may vary widely. Some examples will creating reports that were acceptable to the users.
illustrate that there are, because of these physical factors, The above examples demonstrate that ERP
wide differences in the complexity, cost and length of implementation projects may be radically different in terms
ERP implementation. of site numbers, geographical distribution of sites, the size
Example 1. A multi-national pharmaceutical company of the user group, and the resultant complexity of the
with a turnover of $A250 per annum and 500 employees systems. Additionally, the examples make it clear that the
decided to implement an ERP in October 1996. Their physical scope is subject to change during the project.
expectation was that the project time would be 15 months
approximately, and would cost $A5.5M. There were three 4.2.2 Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)
reasons for adoption of an ERP. The first stemmed from a Scope. Although it is widely believed that BPR is a
company re-structure, which involved co-location of the necessary feature of ERP implementation the interviews
pharmaceutical and the medical arms of the company. showed that some companies deliberately opted to
Secondly, the company was impressed by the "World-wide minimise it. This selection of the level and type of BPR
move to SAP"1 and thirdly, they wished to replace an was recognised by Bancroft in her study of 30 American
obsolete system with a common systems platform. The implementations of SAP R/3: "Not all companies wish to
original project plan focused on a staged implementation make massive changes to their business processes" [2.
first covering four sites in Australia and New Zealand, and page 26]. The experts in the interviews emphasised this
then moving on to a rollout across other Pacific sites. point. They frequently referred to "Vanilla ERP" by
About four months into stage one, the SouthEast Asian which they meant an implementation in which the
economic crisis forced a review of the site implementation company substantially conformed to the ERP, rather than
strategy. In response to the economic uncertainty in Asia, implementation of the ERP being preceded by significant
the company revised its plans and decided to pursue a ERP-independent BPR. It is true that some companies
national implementation while indefinitely delaying saw the adoption of an ERP as an opportunity for
expansion into S.E. Asia. This change resulted in the move comprehensive BPR. In this context, BPR was seen as a
from a consultancy company with broad regional prelude to mapping the business processes onto the ERP
experience to a company with local experience. This system. However, and interestingly, the most experienced
change of consultancy team, and the redrawing of the experts were adamant that implementation should be
physical scope of the implementation imposed significant accompanied by as little BPR as possible. Of course, even
delays and meant that the project was re-scheduled for if the vanilla ERP approach is adopted, some BPR is
completion in January 1999, which was 12 months longer inevitable, particularly when legacy systems are involved.
than originally estimated, and $A3.5 M more than the
There are two dimensions to the change management
original budget. The implementation project took a total of
process which affect the resource allocation for the ERP
3 years.
implementation. The first of these concerns the nature of
Example 2: An Australian automotive company the change. The change may be essentially a refinement of
decided to implement a SAP system for several reasons. the current process, or it may involve the abandonment of
They needed to replace an aging mainframe, they wished to the current process and its replacement with a new one.
streamline their business processes, and they needed to These are the sharp edges of the change dimension. As
achieve Y2K compliance. The aim to streamline the Bancroft notes (See Figure 1 below) the nature of the
business processes included a need for improved change is best represented as a continuum from a
transaction (General Ledger, Accounts Receivable/Payable, refinement (Streamline) to a new process (Reinvention)
Fixed Assets) processing speeds, and integration of
functions which were being performed outside the central
system. The company had in recent years ceased Figure 1 Change Continuum - (Bancroft 1998 page 27)
manufacturing cars, and moved into sales and distribution
only. This move resulted in significant downsizing, with
between 3-4000 employees being declared redundant. The Streamline Reinvent
company decided to implement a SAP R/3 system on 3
servers on a single site with approximately 80 users.
Implementation took 8 months, which was 2 months longer
than expected. The original budget of $A1.8M was Magnitude of Change
exceeded by $A500, 000, because the original "Go Live"
date was changed when it was realised it would coincide The second dimension of BPR concerns the scale of the
envisaged change/s. The change may affect only a few
people, or they may affect departments or regions. The
more people and business areas which are affected the one which selects only a few core modules (typically
more complexity is built in to the project and the greater the Financials, Controlling, Asset Management and Project
expected time and resource allocation System).
4.2.3 Technical Scope A key initial decision for an 4.2.5 Resource Scope - time and budget. The 42
implementation manager is to decide if and how much the implementations documented in the interviews took
ERP software is to be modified. The experts interviewed, between 8 months and 7 years, and they cost between
particularly those with most experience, insisted that this 1.3M and 70M Australian dollars2. The project length
decision was one of the most significant in ensuring that confirms the Bancroft [2, 3 ] studies which estimated that
budget and time frames were met. One of these experts, an implementation may vary from six months to several
who had been Project Manager of seven large SAP years. These figures imply that projects may reasonably
implementations, provided us with his "10 be viewed as so varying in resource allocation as to be
Commandments for SAP implementation". Number 2 was viewed as non-comparable.
"Thou shalt not change SAP"! There are several types and
levels of change that may be contemplated. Each ERP has 4.3 Summary - ERP Implementation
its own built-in business processes. In the case of SAP Characteristics.
R/3 these are shown in the Reference Model. In a SAP
R/3 implementation, an early task for a project team is to
compare its own business processes with those shown in Table 3 below tabulates all the characteristics which
the Reference Model, in order to decide which processes have been identified above as central to distinguishing
will be adopted as is, and which are to be customised [3]. between ERP implementation types.
Not surprisingly, there is a correlation between the
amount of change and the complexity and length of the
project. Apart from customisation, a company may
require an industry specific module to be developed.
Again, this will necessitate a corresponding extension of
time, project complexity and budget allocation.