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Increasingly, organizations are considering adopting cloud enterprise resource planning (CERP) systems instead of implementing traditional ERP systems. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are capable of creating operational efficiency, and improved planning and decision making through business process and data integration (Nwankpa, 2015; Seddon Calvert, & Yang, 2010; Trinh-Phuong, Molla, & Peszynski, 2012; Vemuri & Palvia, 2006). In this study, the term “traditional ERP systems” refers to ERP systems that are hosted on servers located within an organization’s premises, and accessed through the organization’s information technology (IT) infrastructure. Over the years, ERP systems have continually evolved in part due to changing business requirements and technological advancement. As a result, the scope of ERP systems has broadened to offer more business solutions. In the current evolution, advances in cloud computing technology have resulted in the development of CERP systems (Boillat & legner, 2013; Chauhan & Jaiswal, 2015; Saeed, Juell-Skielse, & Uppström, 2011; Popli & Sarin, 2015). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST-USA, 2014) has defined cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction” (Mell & Grance, 2011, p. 6). A CERP system is an ERP system offered through the cloud architecture (Boillat & Legner, 2013; Chauhan & Jaiswal, 2015; Saeed, Juell-Skielse, & Uppström, 2011). CERP vendors host and maintain ERP systems within their own cloud servers, and offer the software and other IT resources to organizations for a fee.
Recognizable differences between traditional ERP systems and CERP systems can be categorized as economical (e.g. cost), technical (e.g., connection) and operational (e.g. maintenance) (Link & Back, 2015; Fan, Wu, Chen & Fang, 2015; Peng, Chao & Gala, 2014). Organizations spend a considerable amount of resources to acquire an IT infrastructure that may be required in order to successfully implement the traditional ERP systems. However, organizations may require significantly less resources while adopting CERP systems. For this reason, the adoption of CERP systems can be an effective alternative to traditional ERP systems adoption which requires organizations to purchase, implement and maintain the acquired systems within company premises. As the management of the ERP systems and services has moved to the service providers, the CERP systems can facilitate fast execution, seamless update and rapid reconfiguration for their customer’s IT needs (Chaudhary, Hyde & Rodger, 2015; Gutierrez, Boukrami & Lumsden, 2015). In addition, the technology adoption may lead to technological changes and innovation for the organizations (Link & Back, 2015; Rogers, 2003).