Challenges and Trends Towards an Effective Application of ERP and SCM Systems in SMEs

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered as both the backbone and the main driving force of economic development and innovation. Technology is playing an increasingly significant role in the success or failure of SMEs. The purpose of this chapter is to present international trends and challenges on the field of ERP and SCM systems, thus to: (a) record background information on legacy and current supply chain IT systems for SMEs, (b) discuss the importance of both ERP and SCM systems and the complementarities of ERP and SCM systems, (c) present survey conclusions of ERP and SCM systems adoption in various industries and countries, mainly in Europe and reveal the most prominent trends and barriers, (d) identify the technologies that are used to provide integrated view of information for SMEs, with emphases on both technological and organizational dimensions and recommendations to SMEs and (e) provide future trends, possible future areas of work and conclusions. Contemporary SMEs must carefully examine integration approaches and their technological and organizational issues such as hidden integration costs and management of change considered with human organizational concerns, cultures and business objectives. Application Service Providers, Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture as well as ERP and SCM application’s maturity and open source software solutions, especially for SMEs requirements, are amongst the anticipating future trends in the field.