تعریف اهداف مبتنی بر ارزش برای برنامه‌ریزی سیستم‌های ERP

The planning and subsequent implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems still present a significant challenge for most organizations. Although consulting firms and customer enterprises have been aquiring more experience and expertise in the field, the level of sophistication of these systems and their wide organizational and social impact frequently leads to failed ERP implementations. In an attempt to minimize these failure rates, this paper defines a set of value-based objectives that could be used to enrich the ERP systems planning process. ERP systems planning objectives grounded by stakeholder values can be used as a conceptual guide for enhancing the decision making processes involved in ERP projects. Using Keeney's value-focused thinking approach, a set of means and fundamental objectives was identified using data collected via in-depth interviews in three large European firms. The relationships and interdependancies among these objectives are also presented and provide a starting point for further research.

ERP software promises significant benefits to organizations. Some of these benefits include lowering costs, reducing inventories, increasing productivity [39], improving operational efficiency [6] and [20], attaining competitive advantage [4], and bettering the reorganization of internal resources [51]. However, even with these reported benefits, the level of overall success for ERP projects has oftentimes been questioned [42] and [48]. For example, Kwahk and Lee [29] have estimated failure rates above 60% for ERP projects. The literature suggests that one notable reason for these high failure rates is the lack of organizations being able to properly align existing business processes with packaged ERP processes [57] and [59]. This paper argues that to ensure successful alignment [3] between organizational and ERP processes, a rich and exhaustive set of objectives that truly represent the stakeholder values of the enterprise must first be identified. While the literature agrees with the notion that ERP objectives are in fact an important critical success factor [1], [2], [23] and [32], it falls short of proposing clear, value-driven objectives and how they could be articulated for a given organizational context. Hence, the goal of this research is to create a rich set of objectives for enriching the ERP systems planning process where the ultimate aspiration is to minimize ERP failure rates in organizations. To develop these objectives, data from 3 ERP implementation case studies were analyzed. Methodologically, this study is grounded in Keeney's value-focused thinking (VFT) approach [26]. Keeney [27] argues that for a given decision context, values of decision makers must first be identified rather than allowing existing alternatives (in this case ERP software) to constrain the thinking of decision makers. In other words, without first determining stakeholder values prior to selecting a specific ERP solution, project objectives tend to become limited by the bounds that are placed on organizations as a result of the technical implementation. And as will be elaborated further in the following sections of this paper, the notion that values should be the key driver for developing objectives is held by other IS researchers as well [22], [41] and [52].

Objectives provide a road map for strategic planning. ERP systems planning objectives are “guide points” to ensure that ERP projects stay on course. They also help in assessing where projects are now and where they are heading, thus guiding the decision making process. To ensure the successful alignment between organizational and ERP processes, a set of means and fundamental objectives was defined using the data collected from three case studies. However, these organizational objectives for ERP systems should not be independently analyzed. Evidence shows that there are relationships and interdependencies among them. In conclusion, using the notion of ascribing values to ERP system plans, we were able to develop a model for interlinked objectives (combination of unique resources and abilities) that could result in improved planning. Research presented in this paper identifies various value propositions (the means–ends objectives network) that provide a precursor to measure the relative success or failure of ERP strategic planning. It should be noted that the objectives found in this research can be used by organizations as a starting point for determining their own context-specific objectives and corresponding value networks. Adding context-specific objectives to our original framework could then provide a means for determining value driven tasks and alternatives for the purpose of maximizing ERP selection and implementation processes. Based on our findings in this research, these tasks and alternatives would be better aligned with a particular organization's strategy thus maximizing the probability of success for ERP projects. However, further research in this light is needed.