Abstract
The many challenges faced today by global businesses are expected to grow in intensity and complexity as we go further into this century. Expanded global competition has become the norm rather than the exception, with an unprecedented number and variety of products available to satisfy consumer needs and desires. In particular, many firms have implemented company-wide systems called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, which are designed to integrate and optimize various business processes, such as order entry and production planning, across the entire firm. A successful ERP can be the backbone of business intelligence for an organization, giving management a unified view of its processes. Unfortunately, ERPs have a reputation for being expensive and providing meager results, because the people who are expected to use the application don't know what it is or how it works. When ERP software fails, it's usually because the company didn’t dedicate enough time or money to training and managing culture-change issues. Faulty technology is often blamed, but eight out of nine times ERP problems are performance related.