Factors Influencing ERP Implementation Success: Lessons from Failed Projects

This article discusses the factors that influence the success of ERP implementation and highlights lessons learned from failed projects. It covers topics such as executive support, project governance, user involvement, experienced project managers, clear business objectives, firm basic requirements, organizational commitment to change, adequate resources, flexibility, clear communication, managing stakeholders, and vendor support.

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ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING IMPLEMENTATION
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Professor (Tutor)
University Name
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Introduction
Enterprise Resource Planning software is a business process information management
software that facilitates an organization to integrate applications to manage the business and
automate many back office functions related to technology, services and human resource
(Sumner 2007). ERP has become a basic requirement in big organizations in order to facilitate
reduction in operation cost, data management, and effective control.
The success of any information technology system project in an organization is highly
dependent on the level of governance put in place in the development, testing and deployment of
the project (Chaffey and White 2010). Many organization leave the role of project governance to
the project managers who are expected to be experienced people in handling large and complex
projects. However many organizations including health organizations have incurred huge losses
as a result of project failure. It is for that reason that the factors of influence or limited control by
project managers (Seddon 2007), are applicable in all organizations including those in the health
sector.
Stair and Reynolds (2013) argue that some project success factors are quite outside the
project manager’s control. Therefore the success of a project can also be influenced by either or a
combination of the following factors as presented by Seddon (2007): Sound project
governance/control, firm basic requirements, user involvement, executive support, adequate
resources, clear business objectives, organizational commitment to change, clear communication,
managing stakeholders, , flexibility, and vendor support. These factors must be put into
consideration and harmonized so as to ensure that the project succeeds.

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Executive Support
Executive support is the support of the top level management of an organization. It is
crucial in order to ensure that the project receives sufficient financing. In the implementation
document by Eden and Sedera (2014), the implementation of the information system received the
required executive support from both the government and Queensland health department. It is
this executive support that led to the involvement of CorpTech in the project as an overseer.
(Galliers and Leidner (2014) argue that since the executives are the organizational vision careers
in an organization, the support they give to a project depends on the value that they see in the
project.
Project Governance
Project governance refers to the process of setting direction, making decisions and
overseeing direction in a project (Watson, Boudreau and Chen 2010). It is very relevant in
project implementation in order to ensure that the project is following the right trajectory. Poor
project governance can be attributed to the failure of the Queensland health information system
since Queensland health department accepted all the risks in the system and opted to go-live
without conducting full testing of the system. Also, Seddon (2007) records that poor project
management was among the contributors to the system failures in the both Cambridge and RMIT
universities.
User Involvement
User involvement in information technology projects involves, collecting user
information needs, testing with the users in order to know if their needs are met, training and
finally usage the system by the user (Avirdsson, Boudreau and Lyytinen 2014). It is critical in

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the implementation of a system since the functions conducted by the system will be based on
user needs. According to Eden and Sedera (2014), Queensland health department information
system involved the users in collecting user requirements but did not involve them in the testing
of the system. According to Seddon (2007) both Cambridge and RMIT universities did not
involve the users that’s why user needs were not captured by the system.
Experienced Project Managers
Project managers play a pivotal role in the success of a project. During the
implementation of a project, the more experienced the managers are, the greater the success of
the project. According to the document by Eden and Sedera (2014), the implementation was
overseen by CorpTech which was considered to have experienced project managers. In the case
of Seddon (2007) document, the failure of the project in RMIT can be attributed to project
manger’s lack of experience.
Clear Business Objectives
Any information systems project is aimed at helping an organization achieve its
objectives more easily and conveniently. Therefore the information system must be aligned with
the organizational objectives. In both the case of Queensland health information system by Eden
and Sedera (2014) and RMIT and Cambridge universities by Seddon (2007), the organizational
objectives were not covered, no wonder both projects failed.
Firm Basic Requirements
Firm’s basic requirements are the fundamental things that a firm requires the information
system to do. A good information system must be able to provide the requirements so that it can
serve the needs of the firm. The information system of Queensland health was unable to provide

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a basic requirement which is processing employee payments (Eden and Sedera 2014). KMIT
university system had a corrupted database, therefore, it did not provide accurate student data
(Seddon 2007).
Organizational Commitment to Change
Organizational commitment to change refers to the willingness of an organization to
adopt change. It is important for the implementation of a system since it provides support in
terms of required data, resources, system testing and incorporation of the system in conducting
organizational processes (Chaffey and White 2010). Both case studies show that the
organizations in the discussion have shown commitment to change since they have incurred a
high investment in implementing their respective systems.
Adequate Resources
For the implementation of a system to be successful, there must be sufficient human,
physical and monetary resources to facilitate the process. Both case studies show that the
organizations in discussion apart from incurring the initial cost of the system, they have incurred
repair cost before their respective systems could operate effectively. Insufficient resources may
delay the completion time of a project.
Flexibility
Flexibility as a factor of success in system implementation refers to the ability of the
system to adapt to changing organizational needs. It is important since it enables the organization
to extend its operation without having to buy a new information system. The delay in the
repairing of RMIT university information system can be attributed to high customization

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(Seddon 2007), which made it to be inflexible. The case study of Queensland health department
by Eden and Sedera (2014) does not portray system inflexibility.
Clear Communication and Managing of Stakeholder
Good communication and management of stakeholders ensures cohesion and minimizes
conflict in the implementation of an information system. In the case of Queens land hospital lack
of proper communication and exclusion of staff in the testing of the system resulted in chaos
(Eden and Sedera 2014). In RMIT university the project manager by-passed bureaucracy and
misadvised the vice-chancellor (Seddon 2007). The tasks and obligations of the key/major
stakeholders in a project must be Cleary defined. It is the role of the project manager and the
executive to ensure that all the stakeholders are properly managed.
Vendor Support
All of the other factors may be satisfied but poor vendor support will automatically result
in the failure of an information system. According to Stair and Reynolds (2013) implementation
of an information system requires regular support such as in debugging, configuration, handling
scalability and many more. The vendor must therefore be supportive so as to ensure that the
information system implementation is successful.
Conclusion
Despite the good benefits that an information system provides, it be a total nightmare to
an organization if the entire process of implementation is not handled with prudence.

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Organizations should therefore focus their concentration on good overall project governance in
order to achieve success in project implementation.
References
Arvidsson, V., Holmström, J. and Lyytinen, K., 2014. Information systems use as strategy
practice: A multi-dimensional view of strategic information system implementation and use. The
Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 23(1), pp.45-61.
Chaffey, D. and White, G., 2010. Business information management: improving performance
using information systems. Pearson Education.
Eden, R. and Sedera, D., 2014. The largest admitted IT project failure in the Southern
Hemisphere: a teaching case. In Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on
Information Systems: Building a Better World Through Information Systems. AISeL.
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Seddon, P.B 2007 Lessons from the Packaged Enterprise Application Software “Go Live”
Failures at Cambridge and RMIT Universities
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2013. Principles of information systems. Cengage Learning.

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Sumner, M., 2007. Enterprise resource planning. Pearson Education.
Watson, R.T., Boudreau, M.C. and Chen, A.J., 2010. Information systems and environmentally
sustainable development: energy informatics and new directions for the IS community. MIS
quarterly, pp.23-38.