Paper 2 - Issue 2

Volume 10 Issue 1 JUNE 2007

Evaluating Enterprise Systems Implementation Methodologies in Action: Focusing Formalized and Situational Aspects
Daniela Mihailescu¹, Sven A. Carlsson² and Marius Mihailescu¹
¹International Business School, Jönköping University, Sweden
²School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden

Enterprise Systems (ES) are often the largest and most important Information Systems (IS) an organization employs. Most ES are rented or bought as COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software. The use of COTS leads to a distinction between the development of the ES software—done by ES software providers, like SAP and Microsoft—and the implementation of ES software in a specific organization. Implementation of ES is often associated with problems like higher implementation costs and longer implementation processes than anticipated. To improve ES implementation, ES providers increasingly support their ES software by, in part, computer-based implementation methodologies. The paper presents an ES implementation evaluation framework called ES Implementation Methodology-in-Action. The framework integrates two complementary views: 1) a technology view, focusing on the formalized aspects as expressed in the ES implementation methodology (the content of the methodology), and 2) a structural view, focusing on situational aspects as expressed by the implementers (the users of the implementation methodology) including implementers, implementation context, ES software and other individuals participating in the implementation project. Using document studies and interviews with implementers we show how the framework can be used to evaluate ES implementation methodologies. We evaluate one well-known ES implementation methodology: SAP’s ASAP.

Keywords: enterprise systems implementation methodology, evaluation framework, Implementation Methodology in Action, methodology evaluation.

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