This qualitative study focuses on how small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can realize benefits and create information technology (IT) value by investing in cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. We interviewed 19 respondents from cloud providers and cloud clients and found that their SMEs experienced both benefits and challenges when implementing cloud ERP systems. The digital value was obtained through work process automatization, fast updates of system functionalities, enhanced security of data storage, and increased access to critical business data from multiple digital units. Challenges in realizing these benefits related to organizational compliance with standard solutions and the need for organizational changes for employees to optimize system usage. The SMEs preferred an informal process for realizing benefits and creating digital value from the system. In contrast, the providers wanted to integrate benefits realization as part of their formal implementation methodology. Based on frameworks identified in the literature, we integrate a benefits realization model with an information systems value model to understand how SMEs realize benefits and create business value from cloud ERP systems. We contribute to the SME literature and explain the value creation process for SMEs implementing cloud ERP systems.
Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions allow organizations to support and coordinate key business processes by leveraging virtualization. Nevertheless, moving ERPs to the cloud is not straightforward, and organizational cloud ERP initiatives raise multiple concerns. We conducted an in-depth systematic review of relevant research literature and identified six key concerns related to cloud ERP implementation: a) the introduction of new ERP work arrangements, b) the migration of legacy data, c) the assurance of compliance with extant rules and regulations for security, d) the continuous alignment between ERP functionality and business processes, e) the ongoing integration between ERPs and the rest of the organization’s application portfolio, and f) the establishment of adequate reliability levels. The identified concerns are associated with both transition management and operations supported by cloud ERPs. All the identified concerns are also related to the need to achieve infrastructural embeddedness. This need sets ERPs apart from other types of cloud-based applications, such as office automation solutions that do not have as many dependencies and exchanges with other systems and repositories within an organization’s information infrastructure. We argue that the challenge of embeddedness has different implications for organizations of different sizes, and we call for further empirical research.
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