Acquisition (Purchasing) of ERP Systems from Organizational Buying Behavior Perspective

Abstract

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are becoming a mature infrastructure in many organizations. Organizations purchase these systems to integrate, improve internal business processes, serve their customers better and fulfill their needs. The buying process of these systems is more complicated and it requires a lot more consideration as it can have long term effects and consequences for the organization as well as for its stakeholders. Acquisition (purchasing) of ERP systems is a complex behavior for organizations and has a lot to consider, from motives all the way to goals being pursued. Buying organizations consider several components that make up its business entity: like vendors, consumers, competitors, and regulations (Harris, 2013). Importance and relevance should be given to each one of these components as they all play key essential roles in sales organizations and their success. Typical organizations treat the purchasing process as a problem solving situation and rely on consultants or sometimes miss out on systematic buying process and the success factors to be considered vary from technicality, price, risk aversion, reputation, all the way to ethical decisions and legal regulations (Bellizzi, 2009). This research paper describe the current acquisition processes, critical success factors literature and propose integrated ERP systems acquisition model for organizations interested in buying similar systems in future.