COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF MULTINATIONAL COMPANY IN

DEVELOPING COUNTRY THROUGH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF

ERP SOFTWARE: A CASE STUDY FROM PAKISTAN

ABIDA ELLAHI

E-mail: abidaellahi@gmail.com

Dr. MOHAMMAD JAVED

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

PAKISTAN

ABS TRA CT

The purpose of this study is to provide evidence on the impact of Enterprise Resource planning systems for

multinational company adopting them, with particular emphasis on its competitive edge as part of business processes.

By studying its business process the focus of this study is to determine the level to which ERP systems have helped

companies in achieving that, focusing attention on amalgamation of work. This study has examined the underlying

reasons why a particular multinational company chooses to convert from unadventurous or conventional information

systems (IS) to ERP systems. In this paper preliminary interviews are used as a tool of primary data gathering. The

results confirmed increase in sales while decrease in cost and time.

Key words: Multinational corporations, Enterprise Resource Planning, Competitive

Advantage, Conventional information System

1
 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to provide evidence on the impact of ERP systems for companies

adopting them, with particular emphasis on their competitive edge as part of business processes.

The focus of this study is to determine the extent to which ERP systems have facilitated the

companies in attaining the competitive advantage, focusing attention on integration of work.

Recent and rapid changes in the business milieu such as privatization, deregulation, and

globalization and therefore the augmented competition transformed large organizations into giant

multinational corporations (MNCs). "A multinational corporation (MNCs) is a corporation or

enterprise that manages production establishments or delivers services in at least two countries"1.

The changing business environment of world has implied the need for MNCs to search for new

ways to survive and succeed. A little competition can be a healthy thing. It can also be both costly

and terrible if a company is not up to par with others in its particular business or industry. A

company can, however, significantly increase its chances of coming out on top by creating a

competitive edge.

Having a competitive edge means the possession of an advantage over its competitors. The

technology put forwards the essential tools for Mncs to respond effectively and efficiently to the

changes. Similarly in today's highly automated IT/Technology-led business milieu, Mncs are

compelled to keep it up-to-date with the innovative technologies in order to remain competitive.

An example of such technologies is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. An ERP system

is a generic term for an integrated enterprise-wide computing system. It includes a set of business

applications (modules) used to carry common business functions such as supply chain, customer

relation management, accounting, stock control, logistics etc.

2
Recent years are the witness of the globalization of many industries. Companies that compete in

the world market want to be better, to make processes more efficient and to improve the quality of

their products. For many years, IT and innovations in the software and communication

technologies have presented many solutions in order to fulfill all these aims. One of the

innovations is enterprise resource planning software.

The essence of a complete ERP system is to automate business processes, share common data

across the organization but most importantly, to produce real-time data. These in turn result in

higher effectiveness and efficiency in operations and consequently improved customer satisfaction

which leads to its competitive edge. In this paper by doing a case study of a multinational

company in Pakistan, the aim is to understand the underlying reasons for ERP systems success or

the benefits accrued.

After introduction the preceding sections of paper are prior research related to ERP and MNCs in

section two, research methodology in section three, results and discussion are in section four,

while section five concludes

1
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Multinational-corporation

3
 L IT E RA TU R E R EV I EW

ERP IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

During the past 30 years the overall business environment and the information technology

embedded within it have seen a lot of tremendous changes (Huber, 1984)1. Bretschneider (1997)2

argues that according to practical observation of management no other technology affects day to

day activities of managers than do recent advances in computer technology.

Over the last decade, companies have neglected legacy or traditional systems in order to adapt a

new class of broad packaged application software which is designed to integrate the core business

activities of an organization. These are called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems,

enterprise-wide systems, or enterprise systems (Arik and Toni, 2002)3.

Many researches have done on ERP implementation issues and cases in the developed countries

(e.g. Duplaga and Astani, 20034 ; Mabert et al., 20005) but unfortunately there is not enough

studies about the experiences of developing countries especially in Asia. However some

1 Huber, G. (1991), “Organizational Learning: The contributing processes and the literatures”, Organization Science,
pp. 2.
2 Bretschneider, I.S. (1997), “Symposium: Introduction to a symposium”, Journal of Public Administration

Research & Methodology, Vol. 64, pp. 85-87

3 Arik, R. and Tony, M.S. (2002), “Special Section: Enterprise Resource Planning”, Journal of Management

Information Systems, Vol. 34, pp. 11-16.

4Duplaga, E. and Astani, M. (2003), ‘‘Implementing ERP in manufacturing’’, Information Systems Management, Vol.
20 No. 3, pp. 68-75.

Mabert, V., Soni, A. and Venkataramanan, M.A. (2000), ‘‘Enterprise resource planning survey of US
5

manufacturing firms’’, Production and Inventory Management Journal, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 52-8
4
researchers have examined the issues of ERP implementation and national cultures in Asian

countries (e.g. Liang et al6., 2004; Soh et al., 20007).

Among these researches most of the studies discussed the drivers, implementation setbacks,

factors effecting ERP successful implementation and the resulting benefits of ERP. It is

important to note that new technology issues are different in developing countries from those

observed in developed countries. The reason for this difference may be different economic,

social and cultural aspects. Davison (2002)8 suggests that awareness of cultural differences and

preferences can certainly help to improve the assessment of ERP suitability and any successive

implementation, and that a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to be successful.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

According to the Porter (1980) 9 a competitive advantage is positional superiority bases on

combination of differentiation, cost superiority or through operating in a protected niche. Mata et

al., 10 (1995) delineate the concept of competitive advantage of firm by regarding it the

implementation of a value creating strategy which is currently not being implemented by any

competitor.

6 Liang, H., Xue, Y., Boulton, W. and Byrd, T.A. (2004), ‘‘Why western vendors don’t dominate China’s ERP
market’’, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 47 No. 7, pp. 69-72.
7 Soh, C., Kien, S.S. and Tay-Yap, J. (2000), ‘‘Cultural fits and misfits: is ERP a universal solution?’’,

Communications of the ACM, Vol. 43 No. 4, pp. 47-51

8 Davison, R. (2002), ‘‘Cultural complications of ERP’’, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 45 No. 7, pp. 109-11

9 Porter, M. (1980) Competitive strategy, Boston: free Press.

Mata, F.J., Fuerst, W.L. Barney, J.B. (1995). “Information Technology and sustained competitive Advantage- A
10

Resource Based Model of Competitive Advantage”, Harvard business review, Vol. 62 No 3, pp.98-103

5
The sources of competitive advantage have been discussed in many contexts. One of them is

resource based theory (RBT) (Barney, 1991 1 1; Parahalad and Hamel, 1990). RBT emphasizes the

importance of internal sources of an organization (Barney, 1991). According to RBT the source of

competitive advantage lies in internal sources, unique competence and core capabilities of an

organization (Barney 1991; Grant, 199112; Parahalad and Hamel13, 1990). The linkage of RBT to

competitive advantage and sustainable competitive advantage can be observed by two central

perspectives. One is resource necessity paradigm and other is core competencies perspectives.

Resource necessity view confirms that, firms will have a competitive advantage only if they have

valuable, rare non-sustainable, non imitable, non replicable, heterogeneous and immobile

resources (Barney, 1991; Teece et al, 199714).

Parahalad and Hamel (1990) argued that irrespective of physical, human or organizational

resources possessed by an organization, the real source of competitive advantage is management’s

ability to strengthen core competencies. They further give the definition of core competencies as

“The communication, involvement and a deep commitment to working across organizational

boundaries, and may involve many level of people and departmental coordination ”.

Day and Wensley15 (1988) in their studies discussed on two definite sources entailed in creating

a competitive advantage one is superior skills and other is superior resources.

11 Barney, J. (1991), “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage”, Journal of Management, Vol.17, pp.
99-120.
1 2 Grant, R.M. (1996), “Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17,

pp.109-22.
Prahalad, C.K., and Hamel, G. (1990), “The Core Competence of the Corporation”. Harvard
13

Business Review, Vol. 69, No 3, pp.79-91.

Teece, D.J., Pisano, G. and Shuen, A. (1997) Dynamic Capabilities and strategic Management, Stretegic
14

Management Journal, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp.31 -52

6
Hunt and Morgan (1995) proposed the categories of potential resources. These are financial, physical,

legal, human, organizational, valuable and relational.

Based on the above discussion it is concluded that RBT provides a framework for understanding the
sources of competitive advantage.

ERP AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF MNCS

According to Parrish (2006)16 the globally integrated enterprise has appeared when companies have

realized that they must reinforce their global processes and operate as a single, global business if

they want to continue to grow and succeed in the twenty-first century. The benefits of doing this

include improved business management, greater efficiency into processes, as well as increased

customer loyalty, real-time information for improved decision making, and lower IT support costs.

The increased concentration on enterprise resource planning as a business enabler is leading the

way for the globally integrated enterprise.

15 Day, G. S., and Winsely, F. (1988), “Valuing Market Strategies”. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52, pp. 45-57.
16Parrish, D. (2006), “The Competitive Advantage of the Globally Integrated Enterprise ”, Retrieved on 4 May 2007
from www.sap.com/industries.

7
The most dominant market for enterprise resource planning vendors has traditionally been the

multinational corporations (Clemmons & Simon, 200117). Until recently, most vendors have

promoted a “one size fits all” solution built on best practices of industry. This approach forced

organizations to either conform to the best practices as suggested by vendors and implementation

consultants or rely on extremely costly reconfiguration of their ERP package.

Mostly the primary intention of every MNC is to obtain the distinctive knowledge so that it helps

to establish themselves as centers of excellence (Moore and Birkenshaw18, 1998). Whether it is the

matter of distinct knowledge base of the Head quarters or of the subsidiaries of MNCs, it has been

widely observed that enterprise messaging system is a key managerial function necessary for

achieving competitive advantage (Grant, 1996).

Tarafdar and Roy19 (2003) observed that Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are designed

to integrate various functions and processes, and are used by organizations as the first-level

systems in their information architecture. Companies can fail to achieve strategic benefits offered

by enterprise systems in case if integrating business process using the models provided by ERP

software prevents the firms from using these offered unique business processes which can be

sources of advantage over competitors.

However, ERP systems may be unable to provide a competitive advantage based upon the

foundations of system value, distribution, and imitability. On the contrary competitive advantage

can be gained by careful planning and unbeaten supervision of ERP projects, and the

17 Clemmons, S. and Simon, J.S. (2001), “Control and coordination in global ERP configuration”, Business Process
Management Journal, Vol.7, pp.205 – 206
18 Moore, K and Birkenshaw, J. (1998), “Managing knowledge in global service firms: centers of excellence”,

Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 12, pp. 81-92.

19 Tarafdar, M. and Roy, K. R. (2003), Analyzing the Adoption of enterprise resource planning software by

organizations in Indian Organization: a Process framework, Journal of Global Information Technology

Management, Vol. 6, No 1, pp. 3 1-52.

8
post implementation alignment of the ERP system with the organization’s strategic direction

(Beard and Sumner20, 2004). The above mentioned literature review indicates that some major

aspects of enterprise resource planning have been studied in different researches as shows by many

researches especially in context of multinational companies as a source of their competitive

advantage. These researches show that enterprise resource planning soft wares are the current hot

issues of business environments and it can be a source of competitive advantage if carefully

analyzed from all aspects.

RES EARCH SETTING AND METHODOLOGY

THE SITE
ICI being a multinational company is one of the world's major specialty chemicals and paints

businesses with products and ingredients developed for a wide range of markets. ICI was set up as

a public limited company in Pakistan in 1952. In Pakistan its head office is located in Karachi. ICI

Pakistan Limited is a 75.81% owned subsidiary of ICI Plc, UK. ICI’s presence in this part of the

world, however predate the formation of the public limited company and indeed Pakistan itself.

Quality of products and services and innovation has been the foundations of ICI Paints. Critical

success factors of growth for ICI Paints are the deployment of new technology, innovation and the

successful marketing and promotion of key brands.

20Beard, J.W. and Sumner, M. (2004), ‘‘Seeking strategic advantage in the post-net era: viewing ERP systems from
the resource-based perspective’’, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 129-50

9
Technology and innovation are important factors for ICI Paints. Success is enhanced by being first

to the market with innovative, value-adding products and services that meet market needs. ICI is

the subject of study in this paper.

RESEARCH DESIGN

The research presented in this paper is a case study. In this the impact of ERP systems for company

adopting them, with particular emphasis on their competitive edge as part of business processes has

been studied.

The following research questions were designed to guide this research effort.

1. Why the multinational company chooses to convert from unadventurous or conventional

information systems (IS) to ERP systems?

2. What are the effects of ERP in terms of increase in sales and decrease in time and cost of

operations?

The competitive advantage of ICI paints is studied in terms of reduction in time and cost of

operations while increase in sales orders. Because of the exploratory nature of this paper, the

data needed to build the case study (Yin,21 2002) was acquired using multiple data collection

techniques. These multiple data collection methods consist of open-ended, face-to-face

interviews with key informants. The key informants for the study were 30 employees at both

strategic and operative levels who had sufficient knowledge of the particular ERP software

being used by ICI Paints Company. The employees of sales and IT department were

interviewed. Along with the interviews secondary data was obtained from the company

21 Yin, R.K. (2002), Case Study Research, Design and Methods, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA.

10
 reports and literature review. Figures about cost, sales and time (three variables of competitive

advantage) were provided by ICI Paints head quarter Lahore. The analysis of data has been

carried out on the basis of primary data obtained from ICI paints head office Lahore and ICI

paints Islamabad.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study aims to assess the competitive advantage of ICI company as a result of implementation

of ERP. With the help of preliminary interviews, technical and sales information was collected.

ERP contains many modules. Modules are the complementary units comprising the whole ERP

software. It was not possible to study all the modules at once due to resource constraints. So for

this study one module, which is customer order processing module, was selected.

Reasons for Choosing ERP

The results of interviews show that in order to compete in the world market ICI has an aim to be

better, to make processes more efficient and to improve the quality of their products. As for many

years, IT has been seen as a tool for achieving all these aims so ICI paint took the advantage of IT.

As a starting point, the management or the administration has used word processing and

accounting systems. While successful in this approach, ICI Paint identified that there is a need for

integration of isolated systems like manufacturing, sales etc. The company realized that more

sophisticated systems are needed to solve problems of handling and disseminating complex

information, to automate processes within procurement, to get an overview of production, to

optimize production, etc. To avoid duplication and to utilize data as best as possible, to make more

advancement in the sales processing system like customers order processing etc, the integrated

system was required.

11
The system before the implementation of integrated software was partially manual. The software

used was inventory sales receiving system (ISRC). This software was in-house developed. The

software could not fully meet the high demands of company work processes like inventory,

warehousing and specially the customer sales processing. So the company decided to switch from

the present system to more sophisticated ERP system. The particular software implemented as ERP

was BPCS offered by SSA.

Introduction of Particular ERP software implemented

BPCS is an acronym for Business Planning and Control System, pronounced as "Bee picks". BPCS

was developed by System Software Associates (SSA), and is used to control the operations of

manufacturing companies2. BPCS is in the category of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

software. Many of the BPCS applications are somewhat stand-alone. Companies can choose to

implement only the financial applications or of the manufacturing applications or both. BPCS has a

competitive strength over other ERP vendor competition, however, because of its manufacturing

and planning applications. BPCS is one of the most popular AS/400 software packages that address

the core system needs of industrial sector companies.

As the applications of BPCS is dependent on the version released. ICI paints are using the BPCS

4.0 5cd version offered by SSA. BPCS was first implemented in ICI paints in the year 1993.

However in 1993 some applications were adapted by the company. After the successful

implementation and working results of the software in 1998 it was decided to fully implemented

the BPCS software. The applications of ERP are deployed on client server basis. The operating

system in ICI paints running the BPCS is OS/400 R5v3. OS/400 is the operating system IBM uses

2
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPCS - 28k
12
for their AS/400 (now called iSeries) computers. The server platforms used in ICI paints are DB/2

which is a data base management system in which data is stored in the form of tables and the

relationship among the data is also stored in the form of tables.

Working of Order Processing Module

According to the respondents, ICI paints in terms of employees, products and services is a large

sized company. It has a direct interaction and deals with the customers on daily basis. For this

purpose the company has to be sensitive towards its customers. In order to retain the customers, the

company needs to become fully active in dealings with the customers. Customers of ICI paints are

mostly permanent customers and comprising of dealers. The orders are placed by customers

through different mediums like telephone, personal coming etc. One of the sections of ICI paint is

located in Islamabad. The section deals with the matters of sales of paints in range of

approximately six hundred and eighty kilometer area. The main areas are of Rawalpindi division,

Hazara division and many other small areas of NWFP excluding DI khan.

In ICI paints Islamabad inventory sales receiving system (ISRS) software was used for twelve

years. When an organization acquires a computer system, accounting is normally the first business

application that is computerized. In the past most businesses had to develop their own accounting

software. In ICI paint ISRS was also in house developed system.

The system was unable to fully integrate all the customer relevant data. As a result of it, the

company was facing many problems. The main problems faced were that transactions were not

timely, mishandling of data because data were not well organized, Lack of accuracy of data,

difficulties in report generation etc. One problem always leads to another problem. Customer

13
orders were received on manual forms. This acquired more time than automated system. After the

implementation of customer order processing module of BPCS the disadvantages or hurdles faced

by conventional system were removed. Islamabad section of the company is a warehouse and not a

manufacturing plant. All the products come from Lahore on daily basis.

Order Processing and Billing of BPCS is a highly functional module with many facilities. It is

designed to allow entering the orders quickly and effectively with maximum flexibility in the

minimum time. It has enabled the entry of orders quickly and accurately and than process them

whatever the source may be e.g. phone, fax Internet or palm devices.

Order Processing and Billing includes multiple customer and transaction inquiries thus enables to

access these within an order. The customer order processing module effectively manages customer

sales order like order entry and order maintenance. It supports the order management process with

visibility into product availability, order status, customer credit information, product pricing etc. It

also maintains the sales history of customer.

Orders were collected on order form from dealers all over the country. These forms were

sent/brought to sales offices. Post ship invoicing was carried out. Order fulfillment and backorders

were tracked manually. After BPCS orders were collected on forms from dealers. Then orders are

processed in customer order processing module.

In 2005 the sales force of ICI paints became automated with palm devices. Invoices were generated

in BPCS. In 2005 the sales force of ICI paints became automated with palm devices. After this

advent Order are now collected on electronic forms using Palm from dealers. Debtors and stock

position is available on Palm. Daily, sales officer synchronize his Palm with the computer back at

office. This brings orders from Palm to BPCS. Invoices are generated from BPCS in sales office

14
against the orders taken from dealers. Than Back orders are fully tracked.

Figure 2: Overview of sales order process

Source: ICI Paints Pakistan

Each customer is allocated a separate code. All categories of products, their color, required

quantities, requested delivery dates etc, from the dealers are colleted on palm devices (It was taken

on forms before) as indicated in the figures 2 and 3.

15
 Figure 3: Screen shots of palm devices

Figure3 is showing palm devices (PD) forms. The dealers name is saved in the PD and then on his

requested order the product type, quantity, packs size etc. all are feed in PD. Then palm devices are

connected with the help of data cables to the system (BPCS) in order to transfer the data. The

further processing is carried out in order processing module. The invoice is generated in the

system. The sales history of customer is checked. Along with it every customer has a credit limit.

The credit limit is checked and than other information is adjusted in the system like order date, its

delivery date etc. The slip is released, printed and than confirmed. After it the warehouse

availability of requested products are checked and confirmed.

16
The customer account management module of order processing module contains two sections one

is “Bill to” and other is “Ship to” section. The bill to section contains the features of invoice

address and contact information. It provides the separate customer alpha lookup for account

inquiries, defines the billing company and currency. The ship to section contains the multiple

delivery addresses for the customer. Some times the ship to address may be differing from the bill

to address. It contains a default route code to filter pick lists.

Some of the screen shots of Business planning control software are shown in figure 4 and 5.

Figure 4: Screen shot of order processing module of BPCS

The figures are showing the order inquiry section of customer account management. In it the

customer number is visible as each customer is allotted a separate number. The address is also

mentioned on it. The date of receipt of order, the amount in Pakistani currency, the name of person

who have received the order on palm device, order status, order type etc. are also displayed on one

screen shot. The order status shows that either the order is of industrial (I), decorative (D), or

refinish (R) paint.

17
 Figure 5: Screen shot of Order processing module

In the above figure the screenshot of customer order inquiry in customer order processing module

is displayed including the history of previous orders of particular dealer. The order amount, when

it was requested, order status, amount due are displayed on it. The order status represents the

partially picked, partially shipped, partially invoiced quantity remaining and backorder (number of

items).

This section allows to select any of argument from list like customer (number, name), customer

purchase order (sales person, warehouse), item (number, description), request date range, order

number etc. Multiple filters can be selected to narrow the argument search like customer,

salespersons, warehouse, and item.

If an order is cancelled by customer then it can be deleted easily without affecting the order from

customer order processing module. Each customer has its own credit limit, special pricing and

terms. The credit limit is established by values or days which are checked automatically at order

entry time. The discount rates are also displayed. The daily sales data is transferred to ICI

Lahore. In ICI paints Lahore every region and product type has different codes. ICI paint

Islamabad branch deals with decorative and refinishes paints only.

18
 Observed Potential benefits of ERP

According to the respondents after the implementation of BPCS the company observed and

experienced the tremendous increase in sales or orders, reduced cost of operations, reduce time of

operation, efficient performance of employees, information availability etc. Employees or users of

the software were given the on the job training because it is not very much difficult to operate

especially for sales department.

Source: ICI Paints Headquarter Pakistan

19
The figures in the table 1 show that total sales, cost and time of ICI paints. The sales figures of ICI

Islamabad were in few lakes (two to three) per year before ERP implementation. However after its

implementation the sales increased up to Seven to eight Lake per year. In 2006 first time the sales

raised up to one million. Orders are delivered within twenty four hours within the city. (Islamabad

range) and it can take up to seventy two hours outside the range.

The data in the above table indicates that the benefits of ERP are obvious in terms of reduction in

time and cost of operations while increase in sales order. The only reason for this is that orders are

entered in less time in computer and then further processing of sales order like verification of

stock, credit limit etc. can be done in less time just in a click. Orders can be fully processed in less

time. They are also delivered within twenty fours hours. Similarly cost is reduced in sense of

reduction of manual record keeping (stationery), errors reduction in the manual record keeping etc.

All of the data indicates that utilization of enterprise resource planning software can lead to

competitive advantage of a company.

20
 Figure 6: ERP in MNC working in developing country: A source of CA

The above model clearly indicates the potential benefits experienced by the ICI paints company

Pakistan. According to model ERP provides Value, rareness, non imitable and organized resource

by providing sharing benefits, adding value by reducing cost, understanding clients, external focus,

development of integration and business capabilities, replacing outdated information system thus

reducing the cost, and by providing customization by modifying functionalities of in compliance to

its business. It is obvious that these can lead to the competitive advantage of a firm.

21
 CONCLUSION

The assertion of this study is that an ERP system grants the potential for augmented knowledge

capabilities for business and the resulted knowledge capabilities such as generation, combination-

recombination and exploitation of knowledge which can provide a source of competitive advantage

especially for multinational companies.

During the carrying out of this research it is observed that ERP provides applications for financials,

supply chain, and distribution and requirements planning for multiple projects carried out by a

company. Similarly it also facilitates intelligent resource planning as a solution of problems of

rapidly increasing and changing constraints such as materials availability, market speed, and

business costs per location. Similarly an ERP system also allows decision makers to become an

intelligent and responsive organization in the global marketplace.

The study also shows that ERP is not just a computer project; it's a major business decision

challenge. Choosing a poor technology can lead to a series of problems, but choosing a system that

does not truly match the needs of the business can create even more serious difficulties, even if it is

based on the latest and greatest technology.

But from all these points it is concluded that acquisition of this software is expensive but once it is

being implemented it offers such types of advantages which lags behind the cost of implementation

and diminishes its importance and sorrows of being costly or expensive.

In short from this study conclusion can be drawn that ERP functions can be used to implement

completely new ways of performing business processes. Of course, competitors may follow along

and use the same approach. However, it may often be a good strategy to attack from a different

position. Not all competitors have the ability to compete on another playing field, such as on

22
information technology. The companies that build up competence in this area may therefore get an

important strategic or competitive advantage

23
 REFERENCES

1. Arik, R. and Tony, M.S. (2002), “Special Section: Enterprise Resource Planning”,

Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 34, pp. 11-16.

2. Barney, J. (1991), “Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage”,

Journal of Management, Vol.17, pp. 99-120.

3. Beard, J.W. and Sumner, M. (2004), ‘‘Seeking strategic advantage in the post-net

era: viewing ERP systems from the resource-based perspective’’, Journal of

Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 129-50.

4. Bretschneider, I.S. (1997), “Symposium: Introduction to a symposium”, Journal

of Public Administration Research & Methodology, Vol. 64, pp. 85-87

5. Clemmons, S. and Simon, J.S. (2001), “Control and coordination in global ERP

configuration”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol.7, pp.205 – 206.

6. Day, G. S., and Winsely, F. (1988), “Valuing Market Strategies”. Journal of

Marketing, Vol. 52, pp. 45-57.

7. Davison, R. (2002), ‘‘Cultural complications of ERP’’, Communications of the

ACM, Vol. 45 No. 7, pp. 109-11.

8. Duplaga, E. and Astani, M. (2003), ‘‘Implementing ERP in manufacturing’’,

Information Systems Management, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 68-75.

9. Grant, R.M. (1996), “Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm”, Strategic

Management Journal, Vol. 17, pp.109-22.

10. Huber, G. (1991), “Organizational Learning: The contributing processes and the

literatures”, Organization Science, pp. 2.

24
11. Hunt and Morgan, R. M. (1995), “The Comparative Advantage Theory of

Competition”. Journal of Marketing, Vol.59, pp. 1-14.

12. Liang, H., Xue, Y., Boulton, W. and Byrd, T.A. (2004), ‘‘Why western vendors

don’t dominate China’s ERP market’’, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 47 No. 7,

pp. 69-72.

13. Mabert, V., Soni, A. and Venkataramanan, M.A. (2000), ‘‘Enterprise resource

planning survey of US manufacturing firms’’, Production and Inventory

Management Journal, Vol. 51 No. 2, pp. 52-8.

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