IST-Africa 2015 Conference Proceedings Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds) IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2015 ISBN: 978-1-905824-50-2

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Interdependent Enterprise Resource Planning risks in Small and Medium-Sized

Enterprises in developing countries Carrington M. MUKWASI, Lisa F SEYMOUR

CITANDA, Dept. of Information Systems, University of Cape Town, 7700, South Africa Tel: +2721 650 3033, Email: cm.mukwasi@uct.ac.za, Lisa.Seymour@uct.ac.za

Abstract: This study investigated casual and resultant risks associated with the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in Small to Medium-sized Enterprises. Cases from South Africa and Zimbabwe were through semi-structured interviews and analysed by using elements of the grounded theory method. The major resultant risks such as lack of information traceability and visibility and lack of functionality fit in module were identified. These risks were caused by incorrect system setup; insufficient internal expertise; lack of consultant skills; lack of vendor transparency and unclear or misunderstood changing requirements. These causal risks and resultant risks provide evidence for the proposition that a successful ERP implementation is dependent on identifying causal risks and successfully managing them.

Key words: SME, ERP, risks

1. Introduction

An Enterprise Resource Planning system, referred to as an ERP, is a business software package which allows a company to integrate and automate the majority of its business functions and processes such as finance, marketing, human resources, logistics and sales [1]. Despite the high implementation failure rate of ERPs by Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) [2], there is increasing ERP adoption. This is partially due to the advent of low-cost ERPs, low-priced hardware and hosting services, ERPs tailored for SMEs, an electronic business marketplace and beneficial partnerships between large enterprises and SMEs [3-7]. SME definitions vary from country to country [9]. SME cases for this study were from Zimbabwe, where an SME is defined as employing up to 100 employees [10], and South Africa, where an SME employs up to 200 workers [11]. Although ERPs provide much needed benefits to organisations, their implementation comes with risks. Yet, a common reason cited for project failure is a lack of risk management [12]. In particular, SMEs do not justify their ERP investments through a business case which could allow them to predict, document and hence mitigate potential risks [13]. Several models such as Risk Diagnosing Methodology, Characteristics analysis method (CAM), Safe methodology and PMI have been proposed to ensure effective risk management. However, these models have been criticised for being too ‘general’ to be used for ERP implementations [3]. Many previous studies have focused on ERP risks [3, 4, 14-18] yet do not fully investigate the causal and resultant risks in ERP implementations. The majority of studies provide a list of risks and some mitigation advice without considering how risks manifest in others. To address these concerns, this study explored the following research questions: 1) What are the risks for SMEs adopting ERPs? 2) How do risks influence the realisation of other risks?

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The paper starts with a literature review covering general ERP risks, then an overview of the research method, the findings and interpretation. Conclusions are finally drawn.

2. Potential ERP Risks

A risk is defined as an occurrence which threatens the success of a project and may cause a loss [19]. ERP risks from the literature were classified following the Sumner [18] classification into organisational fit; management structure and strategy; skill mix; user involvement and training; software systems design and technology planning integration [Table 1].

Table 1: Potential Risks of Implementing an ERP

2.1 Organisational Fit

The adoption of a standard ERP may impose a rigid arrangement on a company and threaten the flexible nature of many SMEs which need to react fast to transformations in their environment [20]. An ERP, unfortunately, rarely fits well with the business processes of an SME, requiring either that SMEs change their business processes to fit the new system or that they change the ERP to suit the organisation [4]. Related to business process risks is the risk of failing to redesign business processes [21]; misalignment of business processes [22]; and failure to support cross organisation design [21]. All needed information may not be entered in the system [16] resulting in problems such as a lack of data integration [18]. The risk of poor organisational fit is associated with cumbersome input functionality; inappropriate formats for data input; inappropriate entity relationships in the data models [23]; and undisciplined use of ERPs at data entry point [16] and these can result in a lack of integration. Alternatively, lack of integration may be due to failure of the ERP to follow an enterprise-wide design which supports data integration [18]. Due to changes in the business environment, SMEs are interested in ERP solutions but sourcing these systems is complex and fraught with problems. There is the risk of choosing an

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inappropriate ERP or supplier [15, 16]. In some instances, the ERP choice may be sound in terms of current business needs but there is a risk that the system may fail to support future business needs [15, 16]. Other organisational risks described in the literature include lack of commitment from vendors; ERPs failing to meet business requirements, and insufficient resources to roll out ERPs [16].

2.2 Management Structure and Strategy

Management’s loss of control during ERP adoption can impact negatively on organisational performance. This may occur as a result of a decentralised decision making, which may be followed by ineffective endorsement of decisions [24]. It is common practice to form a project team and assign decision rights to specific individuals with particular knowledge and skills. However, a lack of proper monitoring of this may introduce a potential business risk [4]. Lack of competence in negotiating a contract to acquire an ERP and misunderstandings between the buyer and the supplier are further acquisition risks [15, 16]. Other management risks include a lack of support and commitment at the executive level [3], inadequate championing and leadership; ineffective communication during the ERP implementation [16, 18] and inadequate project management methodology [14].

2.3 User Involvement, Training and Skill Mix

Many ERP projects do not achieve the desired benefits because managers underestimate the efforts involved in change management [3] to reduce resistance among staff [24]. Other user management risks are ineffective communication; insufficient training; users unable to realise the benefits of the new ERP; a lack of personnel commitment; a lack of sensitivity to user resistance; failure to emphasise reporting to users [14, 16] and loss of user skills [24].

2.4 Software Systems Design

Risks in this category include: failure to adhere to standard supported specifications; lack of integration; data security risks; lack of user controls in the ERP; poor data migration; partial system adoption; and unclear or misunderstood requirements [14, 16, 18].

3. Research Methodology

The study sample was selected purposively to gather diverse perspectives: cases were drawn from Harare, Johannesburg and Cape Town; implemented different ERP products (anonymised as Alpha, Beta and Omega); and were of different organisational size. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews; participation consent forms were collected and the study was approved by the university ethics committee. In all the cases the majority of IT was outsourced and respondents interviewed were responsible for managing IT in an outsourced relationship. The researcher conducted 10 interviews in 8 companies [Table 2]. The researcher attempted second interviews in each case. In most cases, the first interviewees stated that there was no other person who had meaningful information. This was confirmed in the two cases where second interviews were performed. This limitation was discussed in a previous paper [13]. The collected data was analysed qualitatively using elements of the grounded theory method [25] and a deductive thematic approach that uses an ‘a priori’ template [26]. This allows the use of categories defined prior to data analysis, and, at the same time, allows additional themes and categories to emerge inductively from the data. The ‘a priori’ template included ERP categories from the literature (Table 1). After transcribing, open coding identified, named, categorised and described the phenomena found in the text. Then axial coding identified causal relationships evident in the text. Finally during selective coding categories were modified, combined and selected [25].

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Table 2: summary of cases

Table 3: Risks and the corresponding conversational density

4. Findings

The risks identified are summarised in Table 3 with the conversational density (how often each risk was mentioned) per case and overall. Five categories emerged: inadequate organizational fit; inadequate skills; inadequate user involvement and training; inadequate management strategy and skills, and inadequate software systems design. Each category has multiple themes. While eighteen themes were evident, only dominant themes are discussed in this paper. The majority of the risks realized were not expected. Only one risk was expected (shown in green) and in some cases realized (shown in red). Due to lack of preparation before ERP implementation, the participants struggled to explicitly differentiate expected risks from unexpected risks.

4.1 Inadequate Organizational Fit

Three themes emerged in this category, the two dominant themes, lack of vendor transparency and selecting the incorrect ERP are discussed. The third theme is selecting the wrong ERP supplier.

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There was general consensus from interviewees that ERP vendors were not sincere in their communication concerning how the ERP they supplied functions and the amount of system customisation required. The following statement was made by one participant: “When they sell an ERP system they tell you it can do this, it can do that but (speaking slowly) it’s very different when it comes to the actual implementation and you want to do what they demonstrated to you in an hour. There is a lot of stuff they show you and say can be done but it’s a lot more difficult to get there in practice” (C3A). ERP vendors distorted or overstated the system capability. The literature [2] reports that SMEs have a low understanding about ERP vendors and applications making them vulnerable to marketing. Lack of vendor transparency was found in this study to contribute to ERP re-implementations. When participants were asked if they experienced communication distortions from vendors, one participant said: “one of the disadvantages is the very same thing, that’s why our first implementation was a problem because we asked questions like, can it (the ERP) do this and they (the ERP supplier) said yes, and it can do that. They did not say yes, but these are the consequences (referring to the post implementation problems)” (C1A). Also, the vendors were not open upfront on the amount of customisation required and the maintenance costs were not as per presentations. This tended to surface with system glitches, after implementation. SMEs regard ERPs as the solution to all their business problems and process defects [2]. This creates high expectations. Presumably, ERP vendors appear to have capitalised on these high expectations and lack of knowledge and are not frank on what their systems can do and related consequences.

Interviews showed that some SMEs selected the wrong ERP: … “There were certain transactions which Omega could not do, they were just too complicated. When we did them they always created problems. She (referring to a consultant) comes here every month, sits here for the whole week and corrects the errors. We will go through the whole system, check for errors but they will resurface and I said we cannot work like that. We had to be independent of a consultant. The system became complex such that we could not manage it” (C5). It was found that ERPs could not perform the required transactions and were unsuitable for the company. The source of the problem points to poor evaluation and selection of ERPs. As reported by one participant: “In terms of why we would go either Omega or Beta we did not get a consultant to score for us. We looked at the demonstrations that we did with the vendors. There was a sales guy and a technical guy (...) who demo’d it to us and we were trying various options; what about this; can you do this for us, can you do that?” (C3A). Selecting and evaluating an ERP is a complex process which is characterised by many risks. Not all ERPs are equal hence organisations have to implement an appropriate ERP [27] and failure to select the right ERP affects the overall performance of an organisation. Specifically, it may result in a misfit between the package; organizational goals and business processes [28]. This study found an unexpected additional cost to a company, an ERP that could not work independently of consultant support. The critical and expensive risk of choosing the wrong ERP has been reported previously [16].

4.2 Inadequate Technical Skills

Two themes, insufficient internal expertise and lack of consultant skills, emerged in this category. The majority (6) of the SMEs did not have internal IT Departments. Quoting C5:. “We do not have an IT department here so our accountant is the administrator of the system... He fixes our computer issues”. As a result, this theme was a dominant risk as the majority of SMEs relied on consultants and ERP vendors for most of their technical tasks. There was a lack of business analysts and SMEs were limited to the vendors capability:..

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“They (ERP vendors) came and we explained to them how our system works (...) and they said we can do it. They knew better because we did not know their system” (C1A). This problem was exacerbated by lack of transparency from vendors as discussed earlier. There was a need for a business analyst who would look at both business and technology issues and align the two.

Lack of consultant skills was the dominant risk in this study. Quoting C1A: “When we started using it (referring to Alpha), it wasn’t setup correctly by the Alpha consultants.” Besides insufficient expert knowledge, consultants lacked experience; could not provide adequate technical support; could not convincingly train employees; rectify problems timeously; and were unable to set up the systems correctly. The SMEs battled to continue with daily operations: “Then they (the ERP vendor) lost the key guy (consultant), who was full time allocated to us. He then went to Australia then we battled to get going. So we said forget it, then we went to someone else" (C5). ERP adoption challenges are reported to be compounded with unsuitable consultants, and hence consultant selection criteria are critical [29]. Poor consultant knowledge results in system breakdowns and operational failures. SMEs often lack internal IT competencies hence they depend on consultants and vendors for support [30].

4.3 Inadequate User Involvement and Training

Under this category, five themes emerged: inadequate communication; inadequate user involvement; resistance to the new system, lack of discipline over use of the system, and inadequate preparation. The two dominant themes are discussed.

Inadequate communication occurred strongly but in a minority of the cases. Quoting C7: … “The design objective was not clear; it was forced from top management … they just told us; we want you to implement this system (the ERP).” It was evident that not all stakeholders were well informed about the implementation and the need for the new system. This affected the way employees embraced, perceived and used the new system. Communication covers the provision of an appropriate network and required data to all key players in the project implementation [31].

Inadequate user involvement emerged as a risk, although few companies acknowledged this. Quoting C7: “the design objective was not clear; it was forced from top management. You know people tend to get information from UK, South Africa so they just told us; we want you to implement this system.” Inadequate user involvement was as a result of inadequate communication from senior management as evident in the following statement: “Initially, the users did not accept the new system because they did not know why we removed the old system” (C8). Inadequate user involvement has been reported previously [15, 16, 18].

4.4 Inadequate Software Systems Design

Themes in this category include lack of information traceability and visibility; incorrect system setup; inadequate hardware infrastructure; lack of system security; unclear or misunderstood organisational requirements and lack of functionality fit in a module. Four dominant themes are discussed.

Lack of information traceability and visibility was evident in four cases. “Our problem at the moment is, if I ask how far with the repair of a particular gear box (a gear box brought in for repair)? It’s very difficult for him (the clerk monitoring repairs) to tell me what is going on. He must go to all his files and must do a few phone calls to check with the workshop guys. If the system had full traceability, he would get into the system and tell me, ok it’s on retreatment, we sent it out, here is the delivery note or they are busy grinding the machine because he would look into the system” (C5). The ERPs failed to provide SMEs

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with real time materials tracking; transparency of related processes; comprehensive record-keeping and fully automated traceability of products, workflow tracking and alerts. Also, ERPs failed to provide managers with structured information to support decision making: … “As I said the bill of materials does not work, …it must immediately tell me which spares are in stock, which ones are not available with all their lead times, when to order, how long should I wait” (C5). The systems could not provide up-to-date information for planning and production changes; parts available in stock; lead and delivery times of parts and availability of material resources. Lack of information traceability was common in companies involved in the servicing and repairing of equipment. In agreement, the literature [17] reports that flow of information can be hindered by disparate systems, lack of standardisation and poor technological infrastructure.

An incorrect system setup is a significant risk because of the inflexible nature of ERP configuration. The study found that once an organisation configures its ERP settings or parameters in a particular way, it has to live with some of those settings. This reflects the rigid nature of ERP settings. Quoting two participants: “Some initial choices (referring to system settings) you can’t change. There were some that were made that we couldn’t change and they were unsuitable for us” (C1A). … “You have to think very carefully when you set up the system. Changing afterwards is very difficult!” (C5). Participants emphasised the importance of deciding on the configuration before implementation: “I think the initial settings of the system are extremely important. The consultants must take care of how they set up the system. For instance, if you say you work on a first-in-first-out stock system. That has a major effect on your future and how you process other transactions” (C5). Other challenges as a result of incorrect system setup included the inability to reconcile foreign currency accounts; the inability to calculate depreciation correctly and the inability to link accounts to General Ledger accounts. The inability to reverse initial system settings impacts companies financially and strains the consultant-client relationship. ERP vendors advocate global templates which incorporate standardized definitions, structures; master data and business processes. These are increasingly being adopted to improve standardization [32]. But these global templates cause process deficiencies, inflexibility and do not take into account cultural differences [33, 34]. Incorrect system setup, caused by inadequate consultants; subsequently resulted in ERP re-implementation. Quoting C1A: “It (the ERP) wasn’t setup correctly by the Alpha consultants so after the first year we had to have a total reinstall changing some basic parameters.”

Some organisations failed to define organisational requirements clearly and hence ERP consultants failed to understand them. Quoting C4: “Again, when it comes to do bespoke work, make sure that the right people are on the job. They need to understand the system as well as business because the initial accounts module which was written was not 100 percent what it should have been. So about 7 months after implementation I went and had that module re-written”. Vendors capitalise on insufficient internal experts with overstated marketing which results in lack of transparency and miscommunication. Quoting C4: “When vendors start doing a sales speech and if you do not have someone there who understand the basics of systems; and what can be done and what cannot be done and someone who understands what the business requirements are, you normally end up with miscommunication.” In C4 organisational requirements were incorrectly defined as the initial person who did the job lacked an understanding of how the system operates and the business side. Configuring a system incorrectly was caused by unclear organisational requirements. Quoting C8: “They are blaming us for having the setup done wrongly but it was them who did the set up and the whole implementation... Initially, when the module was setup, the consultants did not know exactly what we wanted so the set up was initially wrong. The consultants just botched that module and it failed to deliver.” SMEs are

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reported to lack requirement specification expertise and are therefore at the mercy of ERP vendors [35]. This study confirmed this.

The problem of lack of functionality fit in modules was prevalent in this study in all the cases investigated and it had the highest conversation density. Quoting C3A: “In terms of disadvantages, one of the biggest ones was probably the Material Requirements Planning (MRP) module. Just because we have so many product lines, (...) about 8 000 stock lines in our warehouse. When you try to run the MRP module at an individual level it does not work, there are too many codes.” Many ERP solutions are incorrectly presented as full-function solutions. In this study, at least one of the modules failed to provide required functionality prompting SMEs to run other systems parallel to the ERP. Therefore, SMEs who want to implement an ERP should first check whether an ERP is a “full-function” ERP solution. C5 struggled with the functionality of an ERP module as they gave the wrong organisational requirements resulting in an incorrect system setup and a lack of functionality fit in module: “They (ERP consultants) said but you said this and that (referring to the specified organisational requirements). So I said its fine, I do not work like this. I said it but fix it for me… It was extremely expensive...” If defining business requirements is not handled cautiously, it can lead to misunderstandings and finger pointing, misunderstandings and budget overruns. Iskanius (2009a) stated that vendors may fail to understand customer needs.

5. Discussion: Risk Interdependence Framework

An objective of this study was to investigate how ERP risks cause the realisation of other risks. The findings indicate that they do depend on each other. The interdependencies which emerged have been integrated into a Risk Interdependence Framework shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Interdependent ERP Risks

The framework is an explanatory model which summaries how risks influence each other in the realisation process. The risks described in this paper are shown in bold font. A causal risk (indicated in green in Figure 1) is one which causes the realisation of another risk. For example, incorrect system setup influences poor system security; poor functionality fit in modules and inadequate information traceability and visibility. Hence incorrect system setup is the major casual risk which has not been emphasised in prior research. Other causal risks which emerged from the study are: insufficient internal expertise; inadequate user communication; lack of consultant skills; lack of vendor transparency; and unclear or misunderstood changing requirements. A resultant risk (shown in pink in Figure 1) is one which is the final consequence or outcome in the risk realisation

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process. For example, insufficient internal expertise influences inadequate communication which in turn leads to inadequate user involvement. Inadequate user involvement stimulates lack of discipline over the use of the system as the final consequence and hence resultant risk. Other dominant resultant risks are: lack of information traceability and visibility and lack of functionality fit in module. These resultant risks are difficult to eliminate or project manage since they are a result of underlying, causal risks.

6. Conclusion

This study identified risks associated with the adoption of ERPs in SMEs. The majority of the risks realised were unexpected and are here made available to SMEs upfront and summarised in Table 3. SMEs can use the risk interdependency framework (Figure 1) to predict hypothetical scenarios which they can base their risk prediction on. This study brings out the major ERP resultant risks such as lack of information traceability and visibility, and lack of functionality fit in module. It was found that the major ERP causal risks which need to be managed are: incorrect system setup; insufficient internal expertise; lack of consultant skills; lack of vendor transparency and unclear or misunderstood changing requirements. These risks provide evidence for the proposition that a successful ERP implementation is dependent on identifying causal risks and successfully managing them to eliminate resultant risks. Future research can focus on validating the risk interdependency framework, resultant risks and causal risks to enhance the proposed theory. Applying action research involving prolonged engagement and persistent observation of the phenomenon under investigation might be useful to more deeply understand how risks are realised and how they influence each other.

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