ERP Implementation Strategies

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING STRATEGIES -- The benefit of Enterprise Resource Planning implementation is  integrated organizational activities such as manufacturing and logistics, finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources in one set of programs that provides support for all activities. An ERP system helps the different parts of the organization share data and knowledge, reduce costs, and improve management of business processes. But Many Enterprise Resource Planning implementation encountered many difficulties like as workers’ resistance and organizational habbits.



Enterprise Resource Planning Implementation strategies requires a proactive attitude of top management   to ensure the implementation of erp goes well. Effective implementation of ERP requires establishing five core competencies, among which is the use of change management strategies to promote the infusion of ERP in the workplace. Although some studies tried to address this problem by identifying change
management strategies that facilitate the success of ERP implementation, many ERP systems still face resistance, and ultimately, failure. ERP implementation strategies involves organizational, technical, and people strategies.

ERP Implementation Strategies For Organizational

Organizational strategies for promoting implementation success include change strategy development and deployment,change management techniques, project management, organizational structure and resources, managerial style and ideology, communication and coordination, and IS function characteristics.


For the example ERP Implemetation for marketing strategies, There are many important streams of research in marketing, two of which are strategic marketing and consumer behavior. The strategic marketing view usually suggests several general steps to be followed by an organization to secure its long-term survival. These phases can be abbreviated as follows:

• an organization identifies objectives and develops strategies to achieve them.
• an organization implements the identified strategies; and
• an organization evaluates if it has achieved what it wanted to achieve.

In the first step, an organization, after identifying its objectives, examines its.potential markets through customer analysis in order to develop the appropriate marketing strategies. Customer analysis involves studying customers’ needs, motives, segments, etc. Porter proposed three generic marketing strategies to reach potential customers: differentiation, cost leadership, and focus.

Tactics for differentiation (including quality and technical superiority, brand awareness,etc.) and for low cost (including features control, labor reduction, government subsidies.In the second step, marketers implement certain of the strategies that fit well with market circumstances. The second phase is the action phase, which requires carefully crafted policies and decisions from top management.

User Resistance In ERP Implementation Strategies

The sources and types of user resistance to a new technology, such as ERP, are many. An interesting framework that classifies the types of user resistance to innovations like ERP implementation by source of resistance is that of Sheth.

The framework shows that there are two fundamental sources of resistance to innovations like an ERP: perceived risk and habit. Perceived risk refers to one’s perception of the risk associated with the decision to adopt the innovation, i.e. the decision to accept an ERP system. Habit refers to current practices that one is routinely doing. In order to reduce employees’ resistance to ERP implementation, top management of the organization must analyze these sources of resistance and must employ the appropriate set of strategies to counter them.

The first step in effectively managing change introduced by IT is to identify and evaluate the attitudes of individual users and influential groups.The answers to these fundamental questions may offer a good starting point in determining the sources of employees’ resistance to the ERP system

• Who are the resisting individuals and/or groups?
• What are their needs?
• What beliefs and values do they have?
•  What are their interests?

Management can use the knowledge regarding potential users from theprevious stage to set up strategies that can best overcome users’ resistance to the ERP system, and to convince as many users as possible to adopt it.

The process of monitoring and evaluating change management strategies for ERP implementation is the last component of the suggested framework. Besides having a performance measurement system to ensure that the desired business outcomes were.


Source: Change management strategies for successful ERP implementation,AM Aladwani