Business Process Management Journal

Success and failure factors of adopting SAP in ERP system implementation

Vidyaranya B. Gargeya Cydnee Brady
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Success and
Success and failure factors of failure factors of
adopting SAP in ERP system adopting SAP
implementation
501
Vidyaranya B. Gargeya
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro,
North Carolina, USA, and
Cydnee Brady
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Volvo Trucks North America, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Abstract
Purpose – Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are software packages that allow companies
to have more real time visibility and control over their operations. This paper aims to investigate and
analyze common circumstances that occur within most ERP projects, and determines the areas that are
key to success versus those that contribute to failure.
Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a content analysis of published articles
reporting SAP implementations in 44 companies.
Findings – Identifies six common factors that are indicative of successful or non-successful SAP
implementations. It has been found that the lack of appropriate culture and organizational (internal)
readiness as the most important factor contributing to failure of SAP implementations in 15 companies.
The presence of project management approaches and appropriate culture and organizational (internal)
readiness are the most important factors contributing to the success of SAP implementations in
29 organizations.
Research limitations/implications – The data analyzed is from secondary sources published in
the press. Secondary reporting could increase objectivity; however, the weakness is that not all the
factors might have been reported.
Originality/value – Identifies factors critical to the success of SAP implementation
Keywords Manufacturing resource planning, Critical success factors
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Enterprise-wide resource planning (ERP) system software packages are highly
integrated, complex systems for businesses, and thousands of businesses are running
them successfully worldwide (Koch, 1996). Even companies such as Hershey, JoAnn
stores, Whirlpool and Samsonite that have suffered through classic disasters,
acknowledge the software packages are able to handle the job. The systems are
capable of functioning as advertised; however, companies run into costly and
sometimes fatal difficulties with the implementation and subsequent maintenance of
these packages.
According to The Gartner Group, 70 percent of all ERP projects fail to be fully Business Process Management
implemented, even after three years (Gillooly, 1998). Typically, there is no single culprit Journal
Vol. 11 No. 5, 2005
responsible for a “failed implementation”, and no individual reason to be credited for a pp. 501-516
successful one. Even the definitions of failure and success are gray areas, lending to q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1463-7154
interpretation. There are generally two levels of failure: complete failures and partial DOI 10.1108/14637150510619858
 BPMJ failures. In a complete failure, the project either was scuttled before implementation or
11,5 failed so miserably that the company suffered significant long-term financial damage.
Those implementations considered partial failures often resulted in tenuous
adjustment processes for the company; creating some form of disruption in daily
operations. In the same vein, an ERP success can be a complete success – one in which
everything goes off without a hitch, or one in which there are few alignment problems,
502 resulting in minor inconvenience or downtime. Frequently, these situational
circumstances that have to be ironed out in the weeks and months after the
“go-live” date are not severe enough to disrupt the daily operations.
There are dozens of vendors of ERP systems. However, the top five ERP system
vendors are SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle, J.D. Edwards, and Baan. SAP has been recognized
as the leader with more than 50 percent of the market (Burns, 1999; Mabert et al., 2000;
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Stratman and Roth, 2002; Vaughan, 1996). Hence, the current study has focused on
SAP implementations as a leading example of ERP system implementation.
One of SAP’s major strengths includes the extensive capability of the software’s
functionality. Perhaps two of its shortcomings are the complexity of the system and the
resulting implementation. It is widely used in industries such as chemicals and
pharmaceuticals (process industries), and also in oil and gas industries. By making a
huge and ongoing investment in research and development, SAP continues to strive for
increased dominance of the ERP market. Accordingly, developments are underway to
gain strength in many other sectors of the economy. There are over 20,000 customers
running the SAP software systems today; this equates to 20,000 “successful”
implementations. Some of these were originally failures, requiring iterative attempts at
making the software work as designed.
In order to determine factors that will indicate early on whether a project will be
successful, or doomed to potential failure, 44 companies that implemented SAP were
reviewed. These companies vary in size, industry and scope of implementation. The
research methodology employed for the analyses was that of content analysis, which
examines the content within published articles, and processes the information
contained within them through qualitative processes. The companies analyzed
implemented SAP between 1995 and 2000.
The next section provides a review of the literature on the implementation of ERP
systems. The third section of paper describes the research methodology adopted for this
paper. The fourth section elaborates on the findings and describes the factors that play a
role in success or failure of SAP implementation. The last section draws some conclusions.

Enterprise resource planning systems

An effective business strategy centers on an aggressive, efficient use of information
technology; for this reason the ERP systems have emerged as the core of successful
information management, and the enterprise backbone of the organization (Nash,
2000a, b). A successful ERP system will streamline processes within a company and
improve its overall effectiveness, while providing a means to externally enhance
competitive performance, increase responsiveness to customers, and support strategic
initiatives (Sandoe et al., 2001). The benefits of ERP systems, once the pains of
implementation are over, appeal to companies.
There are many factors to be considered in making the decision of whether to
implement an SAP system or not. The technical aspect is not the only factor that needs
 to be considered; unfortunately many companies have not seen this until it was too late. Success and
The financial commitment is substantial; therefore, chief executive officers and senior
executive teams must be deeply involved. Simply put, ERP is not intended for every
failure factors of
business. When considering the decision to invest in an ERP system, a business case adopting SAP
must be developed to provide an understanding of ERP, and to formally assess the
benefits that the company – as an individual entity apart from its competitors – can
expect to achieve. The analysis must consider not only the obvious cost/benefit 503
analysis, but also the non-financial factors. Non-financial benefits include information
visibility and flexibility (Sandoe et al., 2001). A more complete listing of tangible and
intangible benefits is provided in Table I. ERP implementation costs are incurred in
three areas: software, hardware, and personnel. The personnel (or the human
resources) cost is by far the largest and most expensive, but at the same time has been
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the area given the least amount of consideration. The software and hardware costs are
often easily quantifiable; however, the “human” cost is not (Davenport, 2000).
There have been a few papers recently published on the factors contributing to ERP
implementation. Dong (2001) proposed a conceptual model exploring the impact of top
management on enterprise systems (ES) implementation. Aladwani (2001) described an
integrated, process-oriented approach for facing the complex social problem of workers’
resistance to ERP systems. Huang and Palvia (2001) proposed ten factors (at the
national/environmental and organizational level) concerning ERP implementation by
making a comparison of advanced and developing countries. The national/environmental
factors identified by them are economy and economic growth, infrastructure, regional
environment, government regulations, and manufacturing strengths. They also noted that
information technology maturity, computer culture, business size, business process
re-engineering experience, and management commitment are the organizational level
factors. Huang and Palvia (2001) did not categorize the factors into those that contribute to
success and those that contribute to failure.
Nah et al. (2001), based on a study of earlier papers (most of which were
normative/prescriptive in nature), identified 11 factors that were critical to ERP
implementation success. The 11 factors noted by them are
(1) ERP teamwork and composition;
(2) change management program and culture;

Tangible benefits Intangible benefits

Inventory reduction Information visibility

Personnel reduction New/improved processes
Productivity improvements Customer responsiveness
Order management improvements Cost reductions
Financial cycle improvements Integration
Information technology cost reduction Standardization
Procurement cost reduction Flexibility
Cash management improvement Globalization
Revenue/profit increase Supply/demand chain
Transportation/logistics cost reduction Business performance Table I.
Maintenance reductions Dismantling inefficient legacy systems Tangible and intangible
On-time delivery improvements benefits of ERP systems
 BPMJ (3) top management support;
11,5 (4) business plan and vision;
(5) business process re-engineering and minimum customization;
(6) effective communication;
(7) project management;
504 (8) software development, testing, and trouble shooting;
(9) monitoring and evaluation of performance;
(10) project champion; and
(11) appropriate business and information technology legacy systems.
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None of the above papers were based on any primary empirical data (in the form of
survey or case research) or secondary data (content analysis of reported cases or
survey studies). Themistocleous et al. (2001), based on a survey of 50 respondents,
underscored the need for integration of existing systems with ERP applications in ERP
implementation. Stratman and Roth (2002) through a questionnaire survey of 79 North
American manufacturing users of ERP systems identified eight generic constructs
(strategic information technology planning, executive commitment, project
management, information technology skills, business process skills, ERP training,
learning, and change readiness) that are hypothesized to be associated with successful
ERP adoption. However, the works of Nah et al. (2001), Themistocleous et al. (2001) and
Stratman and Roth (2002) do not focus on factors of failure.
Umble and Umble (2001) expressed their views on 14 success factors (definition of
business goals, establishment an executive management planning committee, thinking
of implementation as research and development, use of cross-functional teams,
stocking implementation teams with the best and smartest workers, alignment of
everyone’s interest by giving mid-level management hands-on responsibility, constant
communication with teams and end users, excellent project management, choice of
partners, extensive education and training, management with data, measurement of
the right things, establishment of aggressive achievable schedules, and no fear for
change) and nine failure factors (top management failure, poor project management,
lack of education and training, people do not want new system to succeed, unrealistic
expectations about implementation, inaccurate data, attempt to automate existing
redundant or non-value-added processes, mismatch between the business and ERP
system selected, and technical difficulties can lead to implementation) in ERP
implementation. It appears that the work of Umble and Umble (2001), though
normative/prescriptive for failure and success of ERP implementations, is not based on
a systematic analysis of ERP implementations in different organizations.
In summary, the review of the literature shows that there is not much of research
done on identifying the factors of SAP implementation success and failure based on the
content analysis of published articles and books. That is the main thrust of the current
work.

Research methodology
The primary purpose of this research is to find out the factors that contribute to
success and failure in adopting SAP. Content analysis has been be used to infer from
 published articles the factors that lead to success or failure for an ERP project, Success and
specifically SAP implementations. Content analysis is “fundamentally empirical in its failure factors of
orientation, exploratory, and predictive in its intent” (Krippendorf, 1980). This research
technique is often used to determine the bias between two sides of an issue (for adopting SAP
instance, labor unions versus manufacturers), to determine quantitatively whether
readers can and are being influenced by the manner in which an article is written, or
even where it is placed in a publication. The facts of a successful or unsuccessful 505
implementation are fairly straightforward – the project succeeded or it did not as
measured by financial standards, or by operational standards. Content analysis was
used on this level as a tool to analyze the material and make recommendations that will
provide knowledge, new insights, and a practical guide to future actions (Krippendorf,
1980). This content analysis is not to sway the reader into forming an opinion of the
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outcome, only to indicate specific factors that relate to the outcome.

The data generating and data reduction methodology involved analyzing textbooks,
journals and magazine articles for information related to companies that have
implemented SAP software. Companies that implemented SAP between 1995 and 2000
period were analyzed. Articles were chosen through a library database, using search
keywords of SAP, ERP, SAP success, SAP failure, and implementation. Companies were
removed if the supporting articles only detailed what happened after implementation or
gave no details surrounding the success or failure. Data inference centered on mapping
and analyzing the factors stated within published articles. The analysis phase involved
determining the frequency of particular factors from within the entire population. The
structure of the research allowed for a company to cite more than one factor relating to
success or to failure. In all, more than a 100 articles and books were searched. A sample of
those includes Atkinson (1999), Business Wire (2001), Campbell (1999), Jesitus (1997),
Levin (1998), O’Brien (1999), Osterland (2000) and Wheatley (2000).
The content analysis showed that SAP implementation successes accounted for
two-thirds (29 in absolute number) of the companies studied, and failures accounted for
the remaining one-third (15 firms). Failed implementations are often more difficult to
research, as companies tend to keep problems hidden from public view as much as
possible to avoid embarrassment and/or potentially serious financial repercussions.
The factors were categorized into six logical groupings.

Factors and findings from content analysis

Before beginning an ERP implementation, that is even before a vendor is chosen,
much planning and thought must go into the process. By utilizing the methodology
of content analysis, it was possible to identify terms that occurred within the
research, and quantify their frequency. The companies evaluated within this
research were mapped against the criteria, and inferences are drawn based upon the
information.
All the factors were lumped into six logical groupings. These factors either led to
the success of an implementation project, or to its failure. As all factors listed within an
article were evaluated, one would expect companies to often identify more than one
factor as being primary to success/failure. The companies and relative data are listed
in Tables II and III.
As one would expect, more than one factor was listed as contributing to the outcome
of a project. The 44 companies listed a total of 81 occurrences of these factors. For
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11,5

506
BPMJ

Table II.

success of SAP
implementation
Factors contributing to
Factors
A B C D E F
Worked with
Project team, Internal Planning, SAP
Number Revenue Dealt with management readiness, development, functionality,
of (sales) Adequate organizational support, and and and and maintained T#
Company Industry employees ($) testing diversity consultants training budgeting scope factors
Accugraph Software manufacturer Not X 1
available 22 m
Amoco Oil industry Not
available 33 bn X X X X 4
Bioproducts Animal foods and
biological products 100 m X X 2
Chevron Petroleum/chemical
company 53,621 43 bn X X X X 4
Colgate-Palmolive Consumer products
manufacturer 38,300 9 bn X X 2
Dow Chemical Chemical manufacturer 50,000 26 bn X 1
Earthgrains Bakery products Not X
available 300 m X X 3
Eastman Kodak Photography, digital
imaging products
manufacturer 78,400 14 bn X X 2
Farmland Cooperative – farmer Not
Industries owned available 10 bn X X X 3
Fujitsu Semiconductors Not
Microelectronics available 978 m X X 2
Gillette Personal care products 35,200 4 bn X X 2
GTE Telecommunications Not Not
available available X 1
Home Depot Home improvement Not
available 45 bn X X 2
Keebler Cookie and cracker Not Not
manufacturer available available X X X 3
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics group
(capital goods) 126,000 25 bn X X X X 4
Lubrizol Chemicals manufacturer 4,390 1.8 bn X 1
McKesson Health care management Not 42 bn X X 2
available
(continued)
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Factors
A B C D E F
Worked with
Project team, Internal Planning, SAP
Number Revenue Dealt with management readiness, development, functionality,
of (sales) Adequate organizational support, and and and and maintained T#
Company Industry employees ($) testing diversity consultants training budgeting scope factors
Mead Corp Pulp and paper products Not
manufacturer available 2.5 bn X X 2
Merisel Computer products
distributor 570 2 bn X X 2
Morrison Engineering/construction Not
Knudsen Corp available 1.6 bn X X X 3
Owens Corning Building
material/composite
systems manufacturer 20,000 63 m X X 2
RayoVac Battery manufacturer 3,110 703 m X 1
Reebok Footwear, apparel
manufacturer 6,000 2.9 bn X 1
Solutia Chemical manufacturer 10,200 3 bn X X 2
Bay Technology Networking equipment Not Not
available available X X 2
ElfAtochem Chemical manufacturer Not
North America available 11 bn X 1
Boston Beer Brewery 355 191 m X 1
Thermacore Thermal management Not Not
systems available available X X 2
Compaq Computer manufacturer 70,100 42 bn X X 2
Count 3 9 14 12 6 16 60
Percentage of
total factors 5.00 15.00 23.33 20.00 10.00 26.67 100
Success and

507

Table II.
adopting SAP
failure factors of
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11,5

508
BPMJ

Table III.

failure of SAP
implementation
Factors contributing to
Factors
A B C D E F
Project team, Internal
Number Revenue Dealt with management readiness, Planning, Worked with SAP Number
of (sales) Adequate organizational support, and and development, functionality and of
Company Industry employees ($) testing diversity consultants training and budgeting maintained scope factors
Allied Waste Solid waste services
Industries 28,000 5.7 bn X X 2
EI Dupont Petrochemicals
(manufacturing) 71,735 29 bn X 1
FoxMeyer Pharmaceuticals Not
(distribution) available 5 bn X 1
Nash Finch Food wholesaler
(services) 7,304 297 m X 1
Sobey’s Canadian grocery Not
chain available 89.1 m X 1
Unisource Utilities (services) 1,203 7 bn X X X 3
Waste Solid waste services Not
Management, available
Inc. 12 bn X 1
JoAnn Stores Fabric retailer Not Not
available available X 1
PetSmart Pet supply retailer 9,779 2 bn X 1
Samsonite Luggage
manufacturer 7,150 784 m X 1
Snap-On Tool manufacturer Not
Tools 14,000 available X X 2
Whirlpool Home appliance
manufacturer 61,000 10 bn X 1
Bristol-Myers Pharmaceutical and
Squibb healthcare products
manufacturer 44,000 18.2 bn X 1
Hershey Chocolate/candy
manufacturer 14,300 4 bn X X 2
Ikon Office technology 39,600 4 bn X X 2
Count 3 2 1 8 6 1 21
Percentage of
total factors 14.29 9.52 4.76 38.10 28.57 4.76 100.00
 the 29 firms where SAP was “successfully” implemented, the six factors were listed 60 Success and
times and the in the 15 firms where SAP implementation was “unsuccessful” the six failure factors of
factors were listed 21 times. Table IV shows a listing of each factor, and its relative
percentage of frequency. The following paragraphs elaborate on the six factor groups. adopting SAP
Factor 1: worked with SAP functionality/maintained scope
A crucial part of working with the SAP functionality is the ability to streamline 509
operations. When implementing a system, many organizations fail to specify their
organizational objectives. Job skills are raised by the requirements of the new,
post-implementation company. Idiosyncratic ways of doing business, which were
manageable, although most likely inefficient, under the “old system”, are no longer
tolerated. Companies that do not understand these issues early on will face serious
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problems (Davenport, 2000). Successful companies have recognized the importance of

“cleaning up” their operations, which will allow them to implement “vanilla” SAP –
with minimal customization.
Even though the so-called “vanilla” approach is adopted by two-thirds of
implementing companies, some customization will always be required in order to meet
individual needs (Themistocleous et al., 2001). The key, it appears, is to know just how
much to customize. Colgate-Palmolive, a $9 billion consumer products manufacturer,
implemented SAP in 41 countries in 1998. Installing an integrated computer system at
this level of magnitude would be a daunting project for anyone. A direct quote from Ed
Toben, CIO of Colgate-Palmolive, puts the plan into clear terms: “This is complicated
stuff, you have to do anything you can to simplify it” (Stedman, 1999). The ability to
implement SAP with minimal customization requires assistance from several other
factors, primarily streamlining operations and re-engineering the business – both of
which will help the organization to run in a more straightforward manner. Thorough
planning is also a close partner, as it is threaded through the plans from scope to
budgets.
Scope is the initial “blueprint” of an implementation plan. Within this original plan,
budgetary and resource needs are established. During the course of the project, it can
be easy, often transparently so, to become so involved in details that additional
responsibilities or requirements are added or affected. Suddenly, but often too late, the
realization comes that the project is a victim of “scope creep”. The ability to maintain
scope is closely related to planning, and it is possible to achieve for companies both
large and small. Colgate-Palmolive Company also listed scope maintenance as a factor
to their success (Geishecker, 1999). Maintaining scope is just as important for small

Percentage identified for

Success ðn ¼ 29Þ Failure ðn ¼ 15Þ
Factor (percent) (percent)

Worked with SAP functionality/maintained scope 55.17 6.67 Table IV.

Project team/management support/consultants 48.28 6.67 Frequency of factors
Internal readiness/training 41.38 53.33 reported by the
Deal with organizational diversity 31.03 13.33 “Successful” and
Planning/development/budgeting 20.69 40.00 “Unsuccessful”
Adequate testing 10.34 20.00 implementation firms
 BPMJ companies as it is for large organizations. The approach for “rolling out” their
11,5 implementation is another very important consideration under the SAP
functionality/scope umbrella.
Much has been said about “big bang” approaches and gradual rollout of modules
within a company. There is no evidence that any one way is better than another as a
whole; however, one approach will be better for companies on an individual basis.
510 There have been many widely publicized “big bang” successes, and many failures.
The same is true for gradual (phased) rollouts, although these generally are not
headline-grabbers. Chevron, a $43 billion oil giant, attributes a phased rollout to their
success. They successfully implemented SAP and replaced over 250 legacy systems on
a global basis using the phased approach. By implementing gradually, they were able
to catch any “bugs” before moving forward, thereby avoiding any catastrophic,
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system-wide problems (Geishecker, 1999). Amoco, Merisel and Owens Corning are
examples of other companies who chose to take a gradual rollout approach, and who
consider the decision a contributor to their success. Home Depot has successfully
implemented several modules around the world, and utilized the phased rollout
approach (Mearian, 2000). The phased rollouts take longer to complete, and are more
expensive due to the additional time commitment; however, the approach does offer a
reduced business risk (Davenport, 2000). Only one of the companies analyzed cited
SAP core functionality as a problem. Sobey’s, an $89 million Canadian grocery chain,
did not feel SAP could handle its requirements, and prematurely abandoned the
implementation process. For the most part, companies, even the ones who experienced
miserable, expensive failure, agree that SAP will perform as advertised.

Factor 2: project team/management support/consultants

The successful project team is cross-functional, consisting of the most knowledgeable
people in the organization (Nah et al., 2001). The team, at all times, must be dedicated
solely to the project, and have no other responsibilities within the company. Lockheed
Martin, a leading aeronautical group, stated one of its keys to success was “assembling
a team capable of making and executing” the changes required (Stedman, 1999).
A successful implementation is only achievable when high-level executives have a
strong commitment to the project (Davenport, 2000). The attitude of senior managers
will affect not only the flow of funds and information to the project, but also the
subordinates view the project, its future impact upon the company as a whole, and its
impact upon the employees as valued and capable individuals. Fujitsu
Microelectronics, an international manufacturer of semiconductors, successfully
completed its ERP implementation within ten months. They attribute success in part to
top management support (Zerega, 1997). During the entire project, company
management provided substantial incentives to team members, and ensured that
internal communication channels were open at all times. GTE completed an 11-month
integration not only on time and within budget, but also without the aid of an outside
consulting firm. Again, top management was a primary factor cited for their success
(Caldwell, 1998).
Senior management at Farmland Industries showed its support of the process by
providing bonuses to employees and consultants. The project members were charged
with ensuring that not only technical goals were met, but also that the “people” element
and business changes were taken care of at the same time (Davenport, 2000). Farmland
 had the foresight to understand that an ERP system was not only a significant Success and
technical change, but also a massive cultural change. failure factors of
As stated earlier, and reinforced with these examples, the ERP software can be
designed to work perfectly well, but lacking top management support, the project is adopting SAP
destined to fail. Senior management has the authority and responsibility to support the
project internally through incentives and bonuses, and externally through maintaining
open and effective communication channels and a reassuring, positive attitude. By 511
constantly exposing the positive benefits and results of such an endeavor throughout
the implementation process, success is much more likely to occur.

Factor 3: internal readiness/training

The “people element” and training aspect of an ERP implementation have historically
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received the least amount of attention. The paradox of this is that when this factor is
ignored or downplayed, primarily because it does not have the largest quantifiable
benefit, expenses are greatly increased in the long run. By treating resource training
with little regard and financial support, it is not hard to realize the reality of delay,
confusion and financial ruin that may result. Some companies insist on assigning a
fixed cost or percentage to the training effort, regardless of need or variable conditions.
This mistake has certainly been the root cause of many failed implementation
attempts. Fortunately, it has also been a source for others to learn from such
experiences and avoid repeating the mistake.
The people element must be handled on two levels. At one level, employees must be
trained on the new system in order to use it to continue day-to-day operations. The
second level is educational exposure. Managers must know and understand the
implications of the system, and must come to a consensus about the changes that will
take place. If they agree that change is necessary and possible, they can be charged
with disseminating this information to their subordinates. If managers are not in
agreement or collaboration, then there will be no “enthusiasm”, or buy-in, and there
may even be active resistance (Davenport, 2000). The reinforcement of a “team
environment” is critical to the overall success of an ERP implementation. Members of
the project team should be encouraged to support each other and work toward common
goals. This also leads to a “cross-pollination” effect, resulting in a more collaborative
and self-sufficient mix of talent and responsibilities.
Not unexpectedly, the most common failure factor reported was that of “readiness
for change”. Implementing an ERP system completely changes the culture within an
organization, and many companies have found themselves hard pressed to accomplish
this successfully. Unisource, a $7 billion corporation, scuttled its implementation plans
due to “internal problems”. The company was unable to deal with the levels of cultural
change that would have to take place in order to be successful under an ERP system
(Stein, 1998).
Many companies have been guilty of making simplistic assumptions of how
an implementation will affect the culture within their organization. Culture changes do
not occur magically, and must be handled with the utmost care and precision
(Davenport, 2000). These changes directly relate to the human cost element, or human
psyche. If people are not ready or willing to change, change simply will not occur. All
managers must be charged with the responsibility of controlling worker anxiety and
resistance to the ERP system (Aladwani, 2001).
 BPMJ Factor 4: deal with organizational diversity
11,5 Organizations have many cultures. Individual branches of the same organization have
their own ways of doing things, and each function/department operates with different
procedures and business requirements. Not unexpectedly, the larger, more global
companies cite their diversity as an obstacle to success. Individual units and groups
are often companies of their own right, and do not wish to be assimilated into one
512 corporate culture. “Re-engineering” of the business is required here, both on the
“people” level, and on the operational level. This organizational diversity differs from
factor #1 (worked with SAP functionality/maintained scope) in that the company
changes its culture, not just its processes.
Farmland Industries, a $10.7 billion farmer-owned cooperative wanted to ensure that
their endeavor would be successful. Before launching their implementation, they
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interviewed over thirty other SAP users, in an attempt to “learn from the mistakes of
others”. The knowledge gained allowed them to re-engineer their business before
beginning the process, and resulted in a successful implementation (Stedman, 1999). It
appears to be more critical for large, diverse organizations to re-engineer their processes
and remove idiosyncrasies – both cultural and procedural – before taking on a project.
Amoco ($33 billion, oil/petroleum) and Chevron ($43 billion, oil/petroleum) painstakingly
re-engineered their companies. The concept of re-engineering the business is not simply to
fit the software. Before any company can be linked effectively to world-class supply
chains, their internal processes must be world-class (Ptak, 2000). Chemical giant E I
DuPont, scuttled its SAP implementation after determining that its organizational units
were too diverse, feeling that it would be too difficult for them to attempt to re-engineer
their processes (Koch, 1996). On the other hand, it is possible to overcome this problem.
Many large companies, Amoco and Chevron, for example, successfully re-engineered their
business and overcame the problem of organizational diversity.

Factor 5: planning/development/budgeting
Planning a sophisticated ERP project should not be taken lightly or with little
forethought. As mentioned before, there are enormous potential costs associated with
such an undertaking. In addition to the high costs paid out before the go-live date, there
can and have been major expenses incurred by companies that were unable to fully
develop a comprehensive plan. Planning should be closely identified with maintaining
scope during an implementation. Cost overruns and developmental delays are costly,
sometimes fatal results of ineffective planning. Home Depot, Lockheed Martin, and
Mead Corporation are some examples of companies that attributed their success to
planning. Lockheed planned a well-equipped team to do the implementation, allowing
them to make a solid plan for achieving their stated goals. Mead Corporation, a large
pulp and paper manufacturer researched the notorious Hershey Foods implementation
in an effort to learn what they would need to do differently in order to succeed, or more
specifically, to avoid failing. Consequently, Mead successfully implemented nine
separate modules simultaneously within their operations (Shaw, 2000).
Developmental delays with ERP implementations were more of an issue during the
Y2K readiness period, and some companies in the midst of an implementation were
forced to scuttle the operations and make quick fixes to their legacy systems. For
example, this was a primary issue with Nash Finch, a national food wholesaler
(Mearian, 2000). Delays, however, can cause any operation to be scratched if the senior
 managers feel they should no longer, financially or otherwise, support a project that Success and
may never get off the ground within a reasonable period of time. Developmental delays failure factors of
can also lead to resource attrition, which in turns affects the learning curve and
completes the vicious cycle by creating additional obstacles to obtaining cut-over. adopting SAP
Knowing this, Fujitsu Microelectronics successfully completed their well-planned
implementation in ten months. Projects are demanding, not only on the company, but
also on the employees on the team (Zerega, 1997). 513
Implementations can become very costly, despite all efforts at developing a solid
plan. Unisource (Stein, 1998) and Snap-On-Tools (Wilder, 1998) attribute this to part of
their failure. Waste Management, Inc. found the unexpected costs too much to handle,
and subsequently retired their ERP implementation project. Many projects, especially
failed ones, find themselves over budget, some by as much as 189 percent. Only
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one-sixth of projects are completed on time and within budget (May, 1998).

Factor 6: adequate testing

System testing has proven to be the key element of success for some companies, and a
direct cause of failure for others. The Gillette Company endured five months of
rigorous testing procedures before their successful go-live date (CIO, 2000). Eastman
Kodak completed what at the time was the largest implementation on record,
attributed testing as a primary factor for their success (PR Newswire, 2001). After
months or years of development, it may be feasible to assume that both team members
as well as executive management are tired of dealing with the project and just want it
to be completed. The result of this myopic thinking, however, is that testing is reduced
or ignored, and “red flags” are disregarded. Whirlpool Corporation, for example,
attributes inadequate testing as its single reason for an unsuccessful- and
costly-implementation. In an attempt to meet their deadlines, red flags were ignored.
Whirlpool gambled on its testing program by reducing the amount of time needed in an
effort to avoid the “wrath” of senior executives. Furthermore, Whirlpool executives
admitted that to complete adequate testing and fix any problems would have delayed
go-live by only one week. Consequently, these “red flags” reappeared at go-live
creating inventory and delivery problems, and costing the company more financially in
the long run (Collett, 1999a, b). This also proves the importance of another success
factor – top management support. Unrealistic fears of delaying the “go-live” dead line
indicated that senior executives were not completely “in tune” to the importance of
completely testing the implementation; even that resulted in a slight delay. Hershey
Foods stated that their rush to complete the implementation in order to be “ready” for
their busiest time of year, in addition to other issues that essentially doomed the project
early on, caused their massive, highly publicized failure (Geishecker, 1999).

Conclusions
Six factors were identified for success and failure of SAP implementations in this
paper. It has been noted that the primary factors (working with SAP functionality and
maintained scope, and project team/management support/consultants) for successful
implementation of SAP are different from the primary factors (inadequate internal
readiness and training, and inappropriate planning and budgeting) that contribute to
failure of SAP implementation. Hence, it can be noted that the factors that contribute to
the success of SAP implementation are not necessarily the same as the factors that
 BPMJ contribute to failure. This points out that management should be focusing on one set of
11,5 factors of avoid failure and another set of factors to ensure success.
The main regret in ERP implementations seems to be that there was not
enough time and attention devoted to the internal readiness factor and their
changes during the implementation process (Davenport, 2000). This is true for all
companies that have had implemented an ERP system, whether it is SAP or any
514 other vendor.
Management support and commitment is a primary strategy necessary to create the
environment necessary for a successful introduction of the changes brought about by
an ERP system (Aladwani, 2001). As noted, worker resistance and readiness for change
were the primary reasons for implementation failure. It is absolutely imperative for
companies to be responsive to their “internal customers” while they are creating
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systems that will help them deal more efficiently with “external customers”.
Implementing an ERP system is one of the most challenging projects any
company, regardless of size, can undertake. Success does not come easily, and those
who implement only for an immediate return on investment are in for a rude and
expensive awakening. It is clear that most companies implement ERP systems just to
stay competitive. The process has to be part of the business objective, and it has to be
clear that a successful “go-live” is not the brass ring. This fateful date, set early on in
project planning, cannot be viewed as the end goal or even the end of the project,
but rather only a milestone along road to the true goal – realizing the benefits
(Davenport, 2000).
The current research does have its limitations. The data analyzed is from secondary
sources published in the press (in the form of books and articles). Secondary reporting
(as opposed to self-reporting) could increase objectivity; however, the weakness is that
not all the factors might have been reported. The articles/books studied might have
reported status of the ERP system (in the form of SAP) implementation at a particular
point in time. The organizations that may not have successfully implemented SAP may
have been successful at a later point in time with appropriate modifications in their
respective implementation strategies. Hence, it is necessary that longitudinal studies
(over a longer period of time) at each of the organizations should be undertaken.
While this research project was limited in scope, it became apparent through
analyzing the literature that factors leading to success or failure are complex and do
not occur alone. They are actually intertwined with one another, and at many times, are
hard to separate or isolate. Rather than list the ways to approach a project, and
individualize each point, it would be more feasible for a company to understand that it
takes the whole system to complete an implementation through diligent research.
While one or two criteria were recognized more frequently in this paper, a complete and
thorough examination must be indelibly considered prior to undertaking the task of
implementing an ERP system.

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(Vidyaranya B. Gargeya is Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems and

Operations Management, Joseph M. Bryan School of Business and Economics, the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro. He earned his PhD degree in Business Administration from
Georgia State University. Dr Gargeya’s research interests include management of global
operations strategy, ERP systems, supply chain management, services operations management,
and total quality management.
Cydnee Brady graduated with a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Joseph
M. Bryan School of Business and Economics, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. At
the present time, she is employed as a Fixed Assets Manager at Volvo Truck North America. Ms
Brady has an interest in the implementation and usage of ERP systems.)
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