Managing Knowledge in Enterprise Systems

Enterprise Systems are formidable and powerful information systems that have positioned themselves as a landmark in the evolution of Information Technology. The selection, implementation, use and continuous change of Enterprise Systems (ES) (e.g. mySAP.com) require a great amount of knowledge and experience. Due to the lack of inhouse ES knowledge and the high costs of engaging experienced implementation consultants, organizations realize the need to better leverage their knowledge resources. Managing this knowledge is increasingly important with the second wave of ES projects focusing E-Business applications like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). These new applications embrace an open-integration strategy that will incorporate and support other vendors' applications as part of its Internet-based enterprise computing platform. This paper proposes a framework for managing knowledge in Enterprise Systems. The framework draws its strength from meta-case studies and comprehensive literature analyses, which is consolidated into a three-dimensional framework. The Significance of Enterprise Systems Enterprise Systems (ES) (synonyms are Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprisewide Systems and Enterprise Application Systems) can be defined as customizable, standard application software which includes integrated business solutions for the core processes (e.g. production planning and control, warehouse management) and the main administrative functions (e. g. accounting, human resource management) of an enterprise (Rosemann 1999). In order to configure and use ES efficiently, components like implementation tools (procedural models, reference information models, customizing guidelines, project management software), workflow functionality, tools for the development of add-on modules and system administration, and office suites are usually embedded. The new economy is now heavily focused on the use of Internet to conduct businesses. To date, ES vendors, as well as consulting services, have extended their services to applications such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and other e-Business solutions. Currently, the main ES vendors are SAP, J. D. Edwards, Oracle and PeopleSoft. The Gartner Group (Gartner Group 1999) forecasts that the ES market will be greater than $ 20 billion by 2002 (with a probability of 80 %). More than 50 % of this will be ES