Enterprise Resource Planning Systems - Strategic and Organisational Processes

This paper discribes the processes that firms and managers go through in their quests to create and sustain competitive advantages based on so-called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. It is based on Resource-based theory, combined with the Strategy process perspective and with existing literature on information thechnology and ERP. The theoretic framework is extended through a detailed case study of a specific inhouse ERP venture in a European multinational manufacturing company in the paper packaging industry. The emergent resource management framework describes cognitive and cultural factors that support or hamper progress, including uncertainty, knowledge gaps, knowledge transfer issues and the problems of ensuring that ERP usage is converted into competitive advantage. The framework also addresses managerial implications and potential solutions to such obstacles, through the process.