A review of enterprise resource planning system implementation challenges at the Wattle Company Limited from 2006 to 2011

Abstract

After spending five years of development and implementation of an Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) system The Wattle company declared the project a failure. Considerable sums of money and time were spent in trying to successfully implement the project so that the company could have seamlessly integrated information system thereby enabling management to have timely information for decision making. This study therefore sought to explore how organisations buy ERP systems and investigates major factors that underlie successful ERP project implementation with a view to make strategic recommendations to management. The case study design was adopted as it helps to explore a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context.A mixed method research strategy with a bias towards phenomenological thrust to better understand the meanings respondents attached to the process was adopted in this study. Study findings show that the process that organisations go through when buying ERP system is more or less the same for other new-task-kind of decision except that in ERP purchasing there is rigorous information search and more collective decision making.Among other host of critical success factors, top management commitment and support, business process re-engineering, need for clear vision and objectives, change management, selection of right ERP package, selecting the right software vendor, effective project management skills, project team leader, consideration to legacy systems and user training emerged highly ranked. Recommendations from the study entail that management should devote due attention to ERP package evaluation during the purchasing process to minimise customisations, provide adequate timely funding for project operations, reduce project staff turnover for effective knowledge transfer management and manage effectively the identified critical success factors in order to achieve successful ERP project implementation.