Investigating Critical Success Factors Affecting ERP Implementation in Chinese and Pakistani Enterprises

Introduction

Rapidly changing business settings or environments worldwide, internationalization of operations as well as economic globalization are pressing hard in stimulating enterprises across the globe to opt for effective operational as well as strategic initiatives to create, achieve and sustain a long term competitive advantage by effectively integrating its suppliers, customers and partners in achieving the objective of integrated supply chains. In pursuing this, implementation of information systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) make easy the desired level of integration (Yusuf et al., 2004) and due to increase in its adoption by the companies in the current state indicates that the potential benefits of supply chain management and integration is about to be unleashed to a significant extent (Moller, 2005; McGaughey & Gunasekaran, 2007). The use of information and communication technologies like ERP system has profoundly increased in the vibrant organizations of today due to its intra- and inter-organizational integration capability & functionality, streamlining of business operations, improving information flow, enhancing business flexibility and replacement of the old aging & incompatible legacy information systems. Kuppusamy et al. (2009) found that application of such technologies are supportive; in making an enterprise more flexible to adapt and respond effectively to the rapid changes occurring in the dynamic business environments, in streamlining and integrating various business processes or operations, and in improving the flow of information throughout an enterprise.