Abstract:
It is widely believed that major financial benefits can be achieved by
organisations implementing Enterprise Resource Planning software. It is also
believed that such systems are a time consuming and a costly endeavour which
can result in loss of resource and eventually failure of implementation.
Furthermore not all companies have the technical competence or financial
stability to take such a risk. Alternatively companies can be more modular in
their approach in implementing such solutions, adopting one module at a time:
the one that suits them best according to their financial and technical situation
and so gradually work towards Enterprise Resource Planning implementation. A
measurement technique is also required to track progress, success and failure
of such a process.
As global trade routes become more affordable and the cost of shipping
becomes marginalised compared to the overall cost of a product there is a
direct impact on Small to Medium sized enterprises as they start competing with
global businesses and not just locally. Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP's
are one of the many tools that a company can utilise to enhance its efficiency
and become more competitive however implementing such a technology is an
expensive and risky undertaking.
This thesis aims to outline the systems and technologies that a SME can utilise
to achieve such a goal using open-source software infrastructure while reducing
the expenses and risk involved. It also points out a more “one step at a time”
approach to such implementations, hinting that you implement only what you
can afford in terms of time and resource and then build towards a bigger system
when time and cash prevails hence having a gradual improvement to the overall
ecosystem.
The observations derived in this paper are outputs of implementation of such
technologies at a local SME acting as the case study. Results show that
although such an approach can be helpful in bringing the development cost
down, continuous efforts in improving the system and on-going systems support
is required for the post-implementation phase to have a positive impact on the
performance of the company.
