Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the factors that contribute to the successful ERP system implementation, the stakeholders of ERP system and how these stakeholders are related to CSFs of ERP system implementation. Design/ methodology/ approach: The research methodology approach chosen for this research is based on reality and clear research which includes qualitative and quantitative method for collecting and analysing data. Data for this research consists of secondary data, gathered by conducting a critical literature review of research papers published by journals, magazines and books.  The content analysis and comparative study methods are used to analyse data. Findings: Seventeen CSFs that are considered to contribute to ERP implementation success have been identified in accordance with their prioritization where twelve of them have been described; by analyzing some widely accepted in prior researches. Three stakeholders of ERP such as “Top management, IT professionals and End-users” have been identified and their involvement in the ERP implementation has been described. The result revealed that several CSFs of ERP such as “user training and involvement, ERP teamwork and selection of ERP are directly related to End-users”. The findings also revealed that Top management are related to majority of CSFs such as “top management support and commitment, change management, business plan and vision, system quality, project management, effective communication plan, selection of ERP, monitoring and focused performance evaluation, project champion, and business and IT infrastructure”. The result from analysis also showed a correlation between IT professionals and several CSFs such as “selection of ERP, system quality, user training and involvement, post-implementation evaluation, business plan and vision, change management, ERP teamwork, effective communication plan, and business and IT infrastructure”.

Studies in recent years have revealed the challenges involved in deploying ERP solutions due to its complexity. Before attempting to implement ERP systems, it is essential to study various aspects such as project management, training, and change management in detail to manage the associated risks. When an ERP project is undertaken with insufficient planning, it may result in failure to integrate business processes and in substantial financial loss. Research has been pursued to identify critical risk/failure factors that may arise during implementation and the measures that should be taken to manage them. However, there is lack of research in identifying the management of critical risk/failure factor using a structured methodology. This raises a question of ‘can a structured methodology identify and manage critical risk/failure factors and support deploying ERP solutions with a better quality?’ A study of Microsoft Sure Step Methodology is performed to identify critical risk/failure factors that frequently occur during ERP implementation. These factors are derived from 8 articles. On determining critical risk/failure factors, we investigated if Sure Step methodology likely contains procedures that approach these factors.

Public institutions, more specifically public universities, require considerable changes in management and administration. For this changes may be implemented, the incorporation of new technology and integrated systems is essential to support the proposed changes. The decision to modernize the processes must be aligned with the desire of the steering committee to provide a Project which facilitates the proposed improvements, besides being prepared to overcome all obstacles that will appear, proposing an unconditional support to face that the necessary changes being implemented, independent of the resistance and obstacles. The methodology proposed by this dissertation is based on the approach to management the organizational changes and in the methodologies of information system implementation. As a result, it s proposed a model to manage the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) in public universities, having as a premise to provide mechanisms to manage the changes resulting from the implementation of ERP projects, which aim to increase the success of these projects and create indicators that can measure the gains obtained by the institution with the adoption of these systems. For each one of the 26 steps proposed in the model, are defined assumptions, resources, outputs and evidences of delivery. / As instituições públicas, mais especificamente as universidades públicas, passam por profundas mudanças na gestão e administração. Para que estas mudanças possam ser realizadas, a incorporação de novas tecnologias e sistemas integrados é essencial para suportar as mudanças propostas. A decisão de modernizar os processos deve estar alinhada com o desejo da alta administração em prover um projeto que viabilize as melhorias propostas, além de estar preparada para superar todos os obstáculos que irão surgir, dando assim, o apoio incondicional para que as mudanças necessárias sejam implementadas, independentes das resistências e entraves. A metodologia proposta por esta dissertação fundamenta-se na abordagem da gestão nas mudanças organizacionais e nas metologias de implantação de sistemas de informação. Como resultado é proposto um modelo para conduzir a implantação de Sistema Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) em universidades públicas, tendo como premissa prover mecanismos para gerir as mudanças decorrentes da implementação de projetos de ERP, na qual objetivam aumentar o sucesso destes projetos e criar indicadores que possam medir os ganhos obtidos pela instituição com a adoção destes sistemas. Para cada uma das 26 etapas propostas no modelo são definidas as premissas, recursos necessários, produtos gerados e evidências de entrega.

This thesis investigates Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) adoption and implementation in Service Sector Organisations (SSOs). ERP is a business management system that has emerged to support organisations to use a system of integrated applications to enhance their Information Technology (IT) infrastructures, enhance business processes and deliver high quality of services. Regardless of the fact that several other sector organisations have adopted and implemented ERP systems, its application in SSOs is rather inadequate. Among other reasons, two core rationales can be attributed to the latter fact – firstly, SSOs lack the sufficient knowledge, expertise and training to implement such sophisticated integrated systems and secondly, the top management lacks the ability to take appropriate decisions for ERP adoption and implementation. However, merely focusing on a number of factors influencing ERP adoption and implementation may not be suffice, as there is a need for a systematic decision-making process for adopting and implementing ERP systems in SSOs. The limited number of ERP systems’ applications in SSOs has resulted in inadequate research in this area with many issues, like its adoption and implementation requiring further exploration. Despite, the implications of ERP systems have yet to be assessed in SSOs, leaving ample scope for relevance and producing a unique piece of research work. Thus, the author demonstrates that it is of high importance to investigate this area within SSOs and contribute towards successful ERP adoption and implementation. This thesis makes a step forward and contributes to the body of knowledge as it: investigates factors influencing the decision-making process for ERP adoption and implementation in SSOs, prioritises the importance of factors influencing ERP adoption and implementation, evaluates ERP lifecycle phases and stages, maps the ERP factors on different phases and stages of the ERP lifecycle, and in doing so, to propose a model for ERP adoption and implementation in SSOs. The author claims that such an ERP adoption and implementation process in SSOs is significant and novel as: it extends established norms for ERP adoption and implementation, by including Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique for prioritising the importance of factors, thus, facilitating SSOs to produce more robust proposals for ERP adoption and implementation. The author further assess the proposed ERP adoption and implementation model by using a qualitative, interpretive, multiple case study research strategy. Findings from two case studies demonstrate that such a systematic approach contributes towards more robust decisions for ERP adoption and implementation and indicates that it is acceptable by the case study organisations. The thesis proposes, assesses and presents a novel model for ERP adoption and implementation in SSOs and contributes to the body of knowledge by extending the literature.

<p>With the proliferation of Internet, ERP systems like all the domains of Information Technology have known an important evolution. This final thesis project is a study about the evolution of ERP systems, more precisely about their migration to the Web giving birth to a new generation of systems: the Web-Based or Web-enabled ERP systems. This migration to the Web is justified by the difficulty of making possible the communication between partner’s legacy systems and the organizations’ ERP systems. A historical evolution of these systems is presented in order to understand the reasons that lead vendors to adopt the Web Service Technology. Based on different studies, the main technologies such as Web services, Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Application server are also presented. From an interpretative research approach mySAP ERP has been chosen as a case study. This Master’s thesis has been led into AIRBUS France Company within the framework of the SAP Customer Competence Center (SAPCCC) Web site project. The project is aimed at re-building the SAPCCC Web site. The new characteristic of the Web site is to make it accessible by all AIRBUS partners working with SAP applications. To make the Web site accessible by the partners from their own applications located on their own platforms the development has been done thanks to mySAP ERP which is an ERP using the Web service technology. Finally, this thesis presents a comparative study between traditional ERP systems and the new generation of Web-based ERP systems.</p>

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation is a massive undertaking for any organization, and we have all heard about success and failure stories. This research study has identified the Critical Success Factors (CSF) after a successful ERP system upgrade at a pharmaceutical distribution company. The company of interest stores and distributes pharmaceuticals to pharmacies in Finland and Sweden. The company used an old version of the ERP system from 1999 that had been heavily modified over the years to cater for new regulations, business and customer requirements. The upgrade was a complete success, and the new version of the ERP system has been running without major issues ever since go-live in autumn 2016. The qualitative interpretive research was conducted by using two data collection methods, semi-structured interviews and card sorting to gather data from the participants. The participants were selected from the three (3) central roles in the project team to capture the perceived CSFs from several perspectives. The data was a subject for a thematic analysis process to generate codes, themes, and concepts within the extensive data set. The findings revealed that the reasons for the upgrade were the end of support for the ERP system, need for new features and to reduce platform dependency. The participants regarded a stable system after go-live with minimal impact on business and harm to customers as the primary definition of success. The ten (10) identified CSFs were; (1) Top management commitment and support, (2) Software analysis, testing and acceptance control, (3) Project team leadership, empowered decision makers, (4) Project management and (5) Strategy planning, scope and vision, (6) Involvement of end-users and stakeholders, (7) Data conversion and integrity, (8) Consultant selection and relationship, (9) Balanced team and (10) Project team: the best and brightest. Even though the ERP upgrade at the pharmaceutical distribution company was considered a success, there were several areas identified for improvements. The lessons learned was for example related to data quality and test data. The need to introduce new resources by learning from key resources before and during the ERP project. The project model and project organization were other areas that were identified for improvements to reduce administrative work and to obtain a better fit towards the company organization. Several similar ERP system upgrades and new implementations are planned the coming years, and the outcome of this thesis provides valuable guidelines and recommendations to the company. The research thesis will also contribute to the field of CSF analysis and ERP systems and offer suggestions for further research.

This diploma thesis focuses on the problematics of providing ERP in Cloud. The main objectives of this thesis lie in either identification of the situation in the ERP market, provision of an outline of particular deployment models, evaluation of strong and weak parts of ERP in cloud in contractor's and customer's point of view and in charting of potential risks and chances for the area. Obtained theoretical findings are utilized in the practical part of the thesis. Its significant portion is dedicated to proposition of methodology for the selection of right ERP model supply. This is then used for the particular choice of Oracle JD Edwards implementation. To achieve these objectives author realizes an analysis of electronic and printed resources as well as consultations with experts and also uses his own practical experiencies from Algotech Corporation. The main contribution of this thesis is in the creation of comprehensive sum of problematics and in the formation of methodology for the right type of deployment selection. This is all considering the further application and verification on the example. Thesis is divided into five theme parts -- ERP, Cloud, ERP in Cloud, methodology and practical setting of the presented methodology.

The first part of thesis is focused on teoretical basis of selected issues, which is importnant for understanding. The following second part deals with the analysis and the current situation of the processes to be optimized. The next chapter of the thesis focuses on the optimization design itself using modern technologies and modified Dynamics NAV 2018 modules.

Snakes are probably the best example of evolutionarily life-threatening stimulus as they have been one of the first predators of primates and mammals in general. In recent years, it has been shown that snake images produce specific behavioral and electrophysiological reactions in humans, provoking enhanced brain activity over the occipital cortex compared with pictures of other animals. The present study investigated the hypothesis that the response to snake images is independent from awareness. Subjects (n=27) were asked to observe pictures of threatening and non-threatening animal stimuli, presented rapidly and in random order on a screen. Awareness level was manipulated using 4 different conditions of backward masks. Event Related Potentials (ERPs) showed that activity over the occipital cortex was clearly more pronounced for snake images than for the other images, but only in unmasked condition. / Ormar är sannolikt ett av de bästa exemplen på ett evolutionärt livshotande stimuli då de utgjort ett av de första rovdjuren för primater och däggdjur i allmänhet. På senare år har man visat att bilder på ormar producerar specifika beteenden och elektrofysiologiska reaktioner hos människan, och ökad hjärnaktivitet i occipitalkortex jämfört med bilder på andra djur. Föreliggande studie undersökte hypotesen att responsen till ormbilder är oberoende från medvetandet. Deltagarna (n=27) ombads observera bilder på hotfulla respektive icke-hotfulla djurstimuli som presenterades snabbt och i slumpvis ordning på skärmen. Nivå av medvetande manipulerades genom att använda fyra olika betingelser av bakåt maskering. Event-relaterade potentialer (ERPs) visade att aktiviteten över occipitalkortex var betydligt mer uttalad för ormbilder jämfört med andra bilder, men bara i den icke-maskerade betingelsen.

Sequential learning refers to the ability to learn the temporal and ordinal patterns of one’s environment. The current study examines the effects of synchronous and asynchronous temporal patterns on sequential learning. Twenty healthy adults participants (11 females, 18–34 years old) performed two versions of a visual sequential learning paradigm while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Reaction times to the targets following two predictor types were also recorded. Reaction time data revealed that learning occurred in both temporal conditions, although overall the synchronous condition was responded to faster. On the other hand, the mean ERP amplitudes between 300 and 700ms post-predictor onset revealed an interaction between timing condition and predictability in the posterior regions of interest. Specifically, the ERP results indicated that learning of the statistical contingencies between items was more pronounced for the synchronous temporal condition compared to the asynchronous condition.