Objects and their participation in the interdisciplinary design and development of computer games

ERP systems are increasingly accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). If the potential benefits of these systems are significant, the same applies to the risk associated with their implementation. The majority of ERP studies relate to software packages supplied by large vendors such as SAP and Oracle and by smaller vendors; but until now, few have studied the adoption of ERP systems developed “in-house”. Furthermore, few studies have explicitly focused on minimizing the risk of these systems at the adoption or pre-implementation stage. Presenting a critical case study which analyzes the adoption of an in-house ERP by a SME in the agri-food industry, this article proposes and tests a process framework of ERP systems adoption, based upon a literature review and a conceptual framework centered on risk minimization. The study shows that 1) in-house ERP seems to represent a credible alternative for ERP adoption by SMEs, 2) to minimize risk at the adoption stage, a SME can proceed in a rather intuitive and unstructured manner, based however upon certain principles, policies and practices. The successful ERP implementation in this case indicates that it is not always necessary to resort to formalized project management in order to minimize implementation risk.