Factors Influencing ERP Implementation Success: Lessons from Failed Projects

ERP Implementation 1
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING IMPLEMENTATION
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ERP Implementation 2
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.

ERP Implementation 3
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