Justifying an ERP investment: Critical success factors for transformation investments

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects often lead to disappointing outcomes, even downright failures, which is not in keeping with the vast investments they require. It is argued in this paper that a lack of managerial focus on the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for ERP implementation at the outset of their project (however well captured they have been in the literature to date) is the root cause of organisations not achieving the expected outcomes from their Transformation investment. This paper examines the ERP project implementations of four organisations where data and observations were collected over a two year period. From this rich body of empirical evidence, we propose to contribute to our collective understanding of the CSFs for ERP implementation that play a key role in ensuring that investments in ERP packages (Transformation investments) have a greater likelihood of producing desired project outcomes. This research paper also contributes to increasing the perceived usefulness of CSFs to managers and practitioners and illustrates the fact that organisations should undertake self-assessment exercises to improve their preparations for ERP project implementations.