The Main Cause of Problematic ERP Implementations : Bad Management or Functional Mismatches?

This paper describes the results of a multiple case study of five ERP implementations. This investigation led to some remarkable conclusions. Using the project implementation success of Wixom and Watson (2001) as a yardstick, only two out of the five cases could be considered as successful. These two cases concerned stan-dard production processes and had relatively modest implementation objectives.The other three cases concern more complicated business processes and more ambitious pro-ject objectives. In these cases, mismatches between business processes and the functionality of the ERP system could be observed. The following conditions appeared to be favourable for a successful implementation: good preparation of the implementation project, good project management and a high degree of consultant expertise. However, the case studies show clearly that the fit between the business processes and the functionality of the applications is a decisive factor for the success of ERP implementations. In contrast to the findings of other authors, the involvement of line man-agement appears to be of less importance