Post implementation framework for ERP systems with special reference to Sri Lanka

Over the past decade global competition and high levels of IT enablement in business processes changed how the businesses were managed. Introduction of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and rapid adoption of such was a result of increased competition and higher concern on efficient practices in doing the normal functions of a business. When many large Sri Lankan organizations have adopted ERP systems in order to improve their existing performance measurements, most of the organizations have failed to acquire the true benefits expected mainly due to poor post implementation practices. The main purpose of the research would be to develop a framework for successful ERP post implementation by analyzing the best practices, procedures and success factors based on eight selected large scale manufacturing organizations. A qualitative approach based on case studies has been used in order to derive the importance of each variable to the successfulness of the ERP usage. Furthermore the research was supported by exhaustive interviews and participative observation. The findings identified that ERP post implementation failure was not just caused by technical issues of the system, but more importantly was also attributed to critical problems related to top management, change management and effective user training. The proposed framework will assist Sri Lankan companies in utilizing their ERP usage in the post implementation phase. Furthermore the proposed framework can be used as a guideline in successful ERP implementations. The current research community will be benefited by extending the knowledge in to greater paradigm.