ERP IMPLEMENTATION: EXAMINING INTERDEPENDENCIES AMONG PRE- IMPLEMENTATION, IMPLEMENTATION, AND POST IMPLEMENTATION PHASES

Abstract: This research investigates organizational strategic alignment and managerial decisions during pre-implementation, implementation, and post-implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Knowing that each phase has its inherent complexities, we investigate substantial interdependency between these phases and try connecting the dots of decisions and actions of a phase with the results, decisions, and actions of the next phase. We present two cases of ERP implementation by companies in Saudi Arabia. Case framework takes factors like management style and culture in to consideration. INTRODUCTION ERP systems enable a company to increase productivity of the workforce by streamlining business functions, eliminating information silos or incompatible legacy systems, and providing key workers with the information they need to make business-critical decisions (Holsapple & Sena, 2003; Wallace & Kremzar, 2001). ERP systems are highly complex and difficult to implement (Xue, Liang, Boulton, and Snyder, 2005), and often require long implementation time and significant resources. Over the years, many companies have successfully implemented ERP systems and many faced implementation failure (Shirouyehzad, Dabestani, Badakhshian, 2011; Chen, Yang, 2009; Gargeya, Brady, 2005; Barker, Frolick, 2003; Markus, Axline, Petrie, & Tanis, 2000). Common Information Technology implementation success factors such as, t