Comparing Risk and Success Factors in ERP Projects: A Literature Review

Although research and practice has attributed considerable attention to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects their failure rate is still high. There are two main fields of research, which aim at increasing the success rate of ERP projects: Research on risk factors and research on success factors. Despite their topical relatedness, efforts to integrate these two fields have been rare. Against this background, this paper analyzes 68 articles dealing with risk and success factors and categorizes all identified factors into twelve categories. Though some topics are equally important in risk and success factor research, the literature on risk factors emphasizes topics which ensure achieving budget, schedule and functionality targets. In contrast, the literature on success factors concentrates more on strategic and organizational topics. We argue that both fields of research cover important aspects of project success. The paper concludes with the presentation of a possible holistic consideration to integrate both, the understanding of risk and success factors.