Abstract:

Investing in ERP is very expensive and yet risky on top of current and future resources needed to be allocated for the project. ERP implementation failures have a serious negative impact on organizations and this make the task of choosing the right ERP system very crucial. Furthermore, once an organization has purchased an ERP software, they are literally stuck with that system forever, due to the high initial investment. If the purchased ERP system is unable to support any future business requirement, then it would be a total waste. In this paper we describe our efforts in designing and developing a Decision Support System (DSS) tool that can assist organizations to select the best ERP system and consultants for themselves. We call the Selection and Evaluation of an Enterprise Resource Planning Based Systems tool SEEBAS. It is a non bias DSS tool which can assists decision makers to make better decision in selecting the most suitable consulting company to assist them during the entire project implementation. Utilizing SEEBAS will reduce the risk of selecting an unsuitable ERP system, enable all decision makers in an organization to use the same decision making tool thus contributing towards transparency, avoiding biasness and have a systematic way of selecting an ERP system and consulting company for the organization.