Computing and Information Systems - Theses
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ItemMaximizing benefits from enterprise systems( 2001)This study investigates how organizations can maximize benefits from their Enterprise Systems (ES). The results suggest that making optimal use of an Enterprise System is an on-going challenge best managed by successive cycles of system exploration, redesign, and use. Each cycle results in successively better configured software and enhanced organizational processes. Each cycle requires core process managers' commitment and management initiatives to explore and control the positive and negative effects caused by the four distinctive characteristics of Enterprise Systems: pre-packaged features, evolving functionality, sophisticated knowledge, and application infrastructure. The study was conducted over three connected phases that sought answers to three research questions: • What business benefits can be realized from the use of Enterprise Systems? • How and when do organizations realize net benefits from Enterprise Systems? • How can organizations manage the use of Enterprise Systems to maximize net benefits? Phase one answers question one, by developing a comprehensive framework of ES benefits organized around five business dimensions: operational, managerial, strategic, IT infrastructure, and organizational. This framework was synthesized from the literature on ES and IT effectiveness, enhanced by analyzing benefits identified from 233 Web cases, and tested in 34 confirmatory cases. This phase established the basis for further analysis of ES benefits. Phase two applies the ES business benefit framework from phase one to answer question two. Business benefit realization processes are tracked over three to four years in in-depth case studies of four Australian utilities. Patterns of Perceived Net Benefit Flow are identified and graphed in each of the five benefit dimensions. The results show that ES benefit realization is a life-long process, with different benefits being developed in different patterns in the five different dimensions, with results possibly varying across core processes within the one organization. The duration and intensity of benefits also varied among the companies. Using cross-case analysis, the types of ES benefit and the interrelationships between different benefit dimensions are explained. Moreover, various causes of benefit variation were analyzed, with the finding that benefits are mainly driven by management of the four ES-specific characteristics of ES use identified above. Following from the case analysis in phase two, phase three answers question three by further exploring ES management in the four case-study organizations. Six propositions are induced from the four case studies and tested for reasonableness with seven additional ES adopters in different industries. Based on this in-depth case exploration, four different strategies for ES management are identified: process replication, system modification, process modification, and system exploration. By comparing business conditions and the implications of the different ES management strategies, the study suggests that the most effective strategy is system exploration. System exploration involves results in a series of business-led initiatives involving changes to both the ES software and business processes that lead to incremental improvements to the Enterprise System.