Customer satisfaction as a critical success factor for ERP design

Abstract

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has been an important tool over the last number of years in managing business processes for large corporations. An ERP is a software system that links various departments and allows them to work together through a centralized software system. An example would be a hotel management ERP where multiple departments such as accounting, front desk, housekeeping and human resources share vital business information. However, more research needs to be done on ERP initiatives for small to midsized enterprises (SME) to also help them reach their productivity goals effectively. This is, in part, the motivation behind this thesis. This thesis first looks at various methodologies and metrics that can help inform the design and implementation of an ERP. This thesis also incorporates customer satisfaction as a Critical Success Factor (CSF) and metric for analyzing an SME’s ERP design and implementation. Prior to the design and implementation phase, gathered quantitative customer experience data is used as a guide to inform the design criteria with respect to the implementation of an ERP for an SME. This thesis demonstrates that ERP design and implementation concepts can utilize the sentiment of an SME’s customer base to subsequently help key issues get resolved in the ERP design process which may also lead to a successful ERP implementation for an SME. In this thesis, an ERP is designed and developed that is informed through customer satisfaction as a CSF in addition to other techniques such as the As-Is, To-Be and Balanced Scorecard methodologies [1]. Customer Satisfaction is used quantitatively before and after the design and implementation of an ERP to both inform and evaluate the success of the ERP design and implementation for an SME.