Framework for post evaluation of implementation of enterprise systems

Abstract

A range of influences, both technical and organizational, has encouraged the wide spread adoption of Enterprise Systems (ES). The decision to implement an Enterprise System is a strategic one. E..\;) will have major impact in every area of the organization ranging from front office customer care functions to back office strategic planning and decision making. Nevertheless, there is a growing consensus that Enterprise Systems have in many cases failed to provide expected benefits. The increasing role of, and dependency on ES (and l'I' in general), and the 'uncertainty' of these large investments, have created a strong need to monitor and measure ES performance. This paper reports on a research project aimed at deriving a 'Framework for post evaluation of implementation of Enterprise Systems'. The research seeks to identify a holistic approach to Enterprise Systems evaluation by identifying different perspectives and factors. The conceptual framework identifies five perspectives where post evaluation of implementation should be focused, namely, Business vision, product perspective, financial performance, user perspective and match of business process of the company. Each perspective has several attributes that help to measure the performance of the system. The conceptual framework takes into consideration 22 attributes in evaluating the performance of an Enterprise system. Each attributes performance was captured in 3dimensions. They are the level of performance expected by the users, performance of the previous system and the current system. The framework proposed by this paper makes managers to bear in mind that ES post evaluation does not only refer to traditional quantitative ROI measures but should include new dimensions such as strategic, user expectations, product attributes, business process and productivity. The paper unfolds that the performance of a system is a subjective judgment depends on the users expectation level on each attribute. The level of expectation one user (group) to another differs and the perception of the ES performance highly depends on the ability of the system to satisfy this expectation level of each user. Identifying the expectation level of each user on each attribute helps to identify what they value most and hence helps to identify the areas of the system that have not met the expectation level of the users and areas where the system is failing