Assessing Organization-System Fit in ERP Selection Procedures – A Literature Review

To remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment, SMEs rely on technologies that provide support for their business operations. Although an increasing number of SMEs use ERP systems, one of the major challenges is the selection of a software that fully meets their business needs. ERP systems generally come as standardized software packages, that fit generic rather than enterprise-specific requirements. Thus, mutual alignments to business and IT are inevitable when implementing a new system into an existing organizational structure. Consequently, ERP implementation projects face major risks, including users avoiding or misusing the system, or adopting it in a way that does not fully capture the project’s expected benefits. However, the magnitude of organizational adaptations depends on the initial degree of organization-system fit. Thus, this contribution aims to examine current ERP selection methodologies by performing a literature review. Results reveal that most approaches exhibit two major weaknesses. First, instead of providing decision support, they focus on high-level recommendations, insufficiently addressing the degree of organization-system fit. Second, decision-making remains complex throughout the entire selection process, as methodologies do not provide mechanisms to establish an adequate preselection. Thus, the present paper introduces a innovative approach for selecting ERP software based on measures of business process similarity.