Knowledge prioritisation for ERP implementation success: Perspectives of clients and implementation partners in UK industries

Abstract

Purpose

Knowledge management is crucial for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems implementation in real industrial environments, but this is a highly demanding task. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of knowledge identification, categorisation and prioritisation that contributes to achieving ERP implementation success.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a mixed methods approach; a qualitative phase to identify and categorise knowledge types and sub-types; conducting in-depth interviews with ERP clients and implementation partners; plus a quantitative phase to prioritise knowledge types and sub-types based on their contribution to achieving ERP success for business performance improvement. An analytic hierarchy process-based questionnaire was used to collect empirical data for the quantitative phase.

Findings

This study has been able to identify, categorise and rank various types of ERP-related knowledge based on in-depth interviews and survey responses from both ERP clients and implementation partners. In total, 4 knowledge types and 21 sub-types were ranked based on their contribution to achieving ERP success; 4 variables of information quality, systems quality, individual impact and organisational impact were used to measure ERP success.

Originality/value

The empirical findings demonstrate exactly what kinds of knowledge need to be managed, enabling knowledge prioritisation when a client organisation or an implementation partner steps into an ERP implementation, in a real industrial environment.

Citation

Jayawickrama, U., Liu, S. and Hudson Smith, M. (2017), "Knowledge prioritisation for ERP implementation success: Perspectives of clients and implementation partners in UK industries", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 117 No. 7, pp. 1521-1546. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-09-2016-0390

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