Situational Method Engineering in ERP Implementation Methodologies

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and active process, one that involves a mixture of technological and organizational interactions. Often it is the largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across different departments in organization is not a generic, rigid and uniform process it is a vivid one and depends on number of different factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation process receives profound attention from practitioners and scholars in its academic or industry papers. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods/methodologies used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems; even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research domain. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. We will briefly reference current main stream developing‟s in academia and industry regarding ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks and discuss it through ideas and concepts developed in Situational Method Engineering‟s current practices. At the end, this paper also aims at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies implementation methodologies in general and frameworks, its variety and future development.