Measurement of ERP-Project Success: Findings from Germany and Austria

Abstract

The implementations of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have increased rapidly world-wide over the last two decades. ERP projects are long lasting and complex activities, influencing main internal and external operations of organizations. As companies spend an immense investment on these projects, in the beginning managers are focusing on most common success factors to reach the main goal of a proper implementation. For evaluating ERP projects in retrospective, an applicable measurement of the whole implementation and its economic effects is essential.

This research paper evaluates the most prominent ERP project success models mentioned in scientific literature and gives an overview of the different approaches. It explores the best fitting model for measuring ERP project success and based on that analysis, the authors created a new model using empirical data.

The study was performed on a sample of medium-sized companies located in Austria and Germany, which implemented ERP software between 2012 and 2014. Based on a newly developed questionnaire completed by over 300 companies’ CEOs, factor analysis of the data shows a reduction of dimensions for ERP project success measurement. It indicates that characteristics of success factors can be summoned up to 5 different dimensions, namely project management, user satisfaction, time and budget, ERP system quality and economic value. The results show that some of the dimensions suggested by other authors are coherent and redundant, and therefore an extra measurement of these aspects is misleading.  The study is designed to make a contribution to management science literature from the perspective of project management requiring effective success evaluation instruments.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.27.5.13208