Peer Review

A Guide to ERP- A Guide to ERP Benefits, Implementation and Trends

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Reviewed:: Mar 14, 2020 by Information Technology

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Overview:: This is a free textbook on ERP, authored by Lineke Sneller, and edited by BookBoon. It covers the concepts, benefits. implementation and trend. This book can be downloaded freely but comes with advertisements. The "clean version" has a cost. As stated in the resource: "One of the most influential IT developments of the past forty years has been Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP. Thousands of organisations have used ERP to change their business models. Millions of employees in these organisations use ERP in their daily work. Tens of thousands of software developers earn their living with writing ERP software. Suppliers of ERP systems, such as SAP and Oracle, as well as ERP implementation partners, such as Accenture, realise multi-billion annual revenues in the ERP market.";
Type of Material:: Open (Access) Textbook Download for FREE pdf textbook in 4 easy steps... (with advertisements).
Recommended Uses:: The book can be used for self-learning or as reference textbook for lectures.
Technical Requirements:: Pdf reader. Download entire book as PDF from this site you will have to register with an email and additional information
Identify Major Learning Goals:: Recognize the theoretical base of ERP, evaluation and implementation of ERP and identification of future trends From the resource itself: "This Guide to ERP is meant to be read at various levels in organisations. Board members and managers can use this book to gain an overview of the concepts of ERP, the benefits that can be obtained from it, and the link between ERP and other managerial trends and issues. At program or project management level, the book supports the development of ERP business cases, describes parties involved in a typical ERP implementation, and explains a number of ERP risks and pitfalls. For ERP users, who often only see a limited part of the ERP system in their daily work, the book offers the bigger picture. The theoretical basis of the book is clarified by a large number of examples of ERP, from the public as well as from the private sector. The examples, and an extended case study, make the book relevant for higher education, especially for students in management science, financial management and information management courses. This book consists of three parts: - The first part is a general introduction. The aim of this part is to make the reader aware of the most important characteristics of ERP. An overview is presented of the reasons why companies and other organisations apply ERP, and what they expect from their ERP systems. The extent to which these expectations are realised are discussed, as well as the impact of ERP in practice. The most important ERP suppliers are listed, and the technical foundation of ERP systems is explained for a non-technical audience. - The two themes of the second part of the book are evaluation and implementation of ERP systems. The objective of this part of the book is to introduce the phases that can be distinguished in the ERP life cycle in an organisation, the most important decisions that have to be taken in these phases, and methods that can be used for evaluation and implementation of ERP systems. The first phase of ERP, the ex ante evaluation, is discussed in detail. This part of the books concludes with an extensive case study in which an ERP business case is developed for an example organisation. - In the third part of the book, ERP is viewed from the organisational and managerial perspective. The aim of this part of the book is to give the reader an overview of recent managerial trends, and how they relate to ERP. Trends that will be discussed are open source software, corporate governance and shared service centres."
Target Student Population:: graduate, undergraduate, practitioners in Computer and Information Systems
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Solid knowledge of informatics and information systems.

Content Quality

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Strengths:: The book covers all the aspects of ERP, including some criticism to the models. Practical cases and applications (success and fail) are presented. This book supports the development of ERP business cases, describes parties involved in a typical ERP implementation, and explains a number of ERP risks and pitfalls.
Concerns:: Book chapters address individual topics about ERP and sometimes there is no clear connection between two consecutive chapters. Although the book is recent a more thorough approach to cloud solutions is missing.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

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Strengths:: This resource can be used as a reference textbook on introductory ERP classes. The main characteristics of ERP, and their impact on organisations have been not only explored bu criticized as well.
Concerns:: The book comes with advertisements (with links to the companies) unless the paid version is bought. This can be problematic in several universities.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

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Strengths:: this is a comprehensive book on the ERP system, it covers fundamentals, to evaluation, implementation and wraps up with identifying trends
Concerns:: Lacks dynamic materials to motivate and support the reading, and more examples and some comparisons about different vendors

Other Issues and Comments:: Good resource, in general. No concerns except that it requires some sign in information to be able to access the book
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