Abstract:

Enterprise Resource Planning systems are still increasing in popularity despite a number of high profile failures and well-documented implementation difficulties. Increasingly, organisation are placing importance upon technology and business systems to enable market advances. ERP promises excellent returns for organisations that manage to overcome the often formidable hurdles that impede the path to achieving the full benefits of these systems. Assessing the return on investment for complex ERP software implementations poses an enormous challenge for IT departments. Of major concern to the IT industry is the extent that ERP implementations and ERP project budget overruns contribute to the problem of increasing IT costs and poor returns from technology investment.

The research described in this paper identifies the returns received on investments made by organisations attempting to utilise ERP technology. A hypothesis formed from the literature review was investigated using a survey questionnaire distributed to IT professionals involved with the implementation of ERP systems. Based on these investigations, conclusions were drawn about current industry practise in measuring the returns on investment on ERP systems.

The survey indicated that most organisations favour a cost / benefit analysis to assess the return on investment from ERP.