 ERP selection through business relationships – adaptations or connectionsPeter Ekman and Peter Thilenius International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2011, vol. 3, issue 1, 63-83 Abstract: This article analyses how a generic form of information technology (IT), enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, can be selected by companies to enhance their business. ERP systems are a means of becoming more efficient through predefined standard functions called 'best practices'. Following the theory that markets are made up of business relationships in a network context, managerial advice would be to assess the vendor's existing business relationships. A company can harvest the inherent functions that an ERP system has from the vendor's prior interaction with other customers. This paper discusses how a company benefits from engaging in a new business relationship with an ERP vendor to become more competitive. However, this relationship is double-edged. A lesson is that the functions developed by the ERP vendor and the customer only offer a temporal competitive advantage, given that it can be used later in the ERP vendor's other connected business relationships. Keywords: information technology; enterprise resource planning; ERP selection; best practice; business relationships; adaptation; connections; network infusion; case study; business networks. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijeven:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:63-83 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
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