The impact of ERP on supply chain management: Exploratory findings from a European Delphi study

By Henk A. Akkermans, P. Bogerd, Enver Yücesan, L. Wassenhove. European Journal of Operational Research, 2003

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Abstract This article presents results from a Delphi study on the future impact of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems on supply chain management (SCM). The Delphi study was conducted with 23 Dutch supply chain executives of European multi-nationals. Findings from this exploratory study were threefold. First, our executives have identified the following key SCM issues for the coming years: (1) further integration of activities between suppliers and customers across the entire supply chain; (2) on-going changes in supply chain needs and required flexibility from IT; (3) more mass customization of products and services leading to increasing assortments while decreasing cycle times and inventories; (4) the locus of the driver’s seat of the entire supply chain and (5) supply chains consisting of several independent enterprises. The second main finding is that the panel experts saw only a modest role for ERP in improving future supply chain effectiveness and a clear risk of ERP actually limiting progress in SCM. ERP was seen as offering a positive contribution to only four of the top 12 future supply chain issues: (1) more customization of products and services; (2) more standardized processes and information; (3) the need for worldwide IT systems; and (4) greater transparency of the marketplace. Implications for subsequent research and management practice are discussed. The following key limitations of current ERP systems in providing effective SCM support emerge as the third finding from this exploratory study: (1) their insufficient extended enterprise functionality in crossing organizational boundaries; (2) their inflexibility to ever-changing supply chain needs, (3) their lack of functionality beyond managing transactions, and (4) their closed and non-modular system architecture. These limitations stem from the fact that the first generation of ERP products has been designed to integrate the various operations of an individual firm. In modern SCM, however, the unit of analysis has become a network of organizations, rendering these ERP products inadequate in the new economy.

Subfields: Management Information Systems, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b04328a26b7be8d2a606614df00229c5918e91b2

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Citations in the corpus

Critical Barriers to Implementation of Reverse Logistics in the Manufacturing Industry: A Case Study of a Developing Country (2018, methodology): “The next section presents the studies used Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the Delphi Method (DM) in supply chain management”
Understanding current and future issues in collaborative consumption: A four-stage Delphi study (2016, background): “…(Kasi et al., 2008; Keil et al., 2013), software project risk management (Schmidt et al., 2001), IT outsourcing (Nakatsu and Iacovou, 2009), the impact of enterprise systems in the supply chain (Akkermans et al., 2003), and finally sustainable supply chain management (Seuring and Müller, 2008).”
Management challenges in creating value from business analytics (2017, methodology): “The Delphi process involves building consensus through a series of structured questionnaires (Dalkey and Helmer, 1963; McKenna, 1994; Akkermans et al. 2003).”
An Exploratory Study into IT Governance Implementations and its Impact on Business/IT Alignment (2009, methodology): “This method is particularly suited as a methodology for this research as “the Delphi method technique lends itself especially well to exploratory theory building on complex, interdisciplinary issues, often involving a number of new or future trends” (Akkermans et al., 2003).”
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): a review of the literature (2007, background): “Eight articles address the ‘Maintenance’ issues in ERP systems.”
The impact of enterprise systems on corporate performance: A study of ERP, SCM, and CRM system implementations (2007, background): “their potential to improve business performance ( Akkermans et al. (1999) , Davenport (1998)).”