Evaluating the North American Pilot for SAP's Campus Management System

Abstract

The critical success factors for enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations in industry, especially in manufacturing, have been explored at length; however, little is available on implementing ERPs in higher education, even though administrative systems and ERPs have been identified as among the top information technology (IT)-related issues for campuses. This chapter examines the recent implementation of SAP®’s Campus Management (CM) system at the University of Mississippi (UM) in order to gain insight into what determines the success or failure of ERP implementations in higher education. It focuses on the transition to ERP, organizational issues, and project management in a university setting and then proposes critical success factors. While many universities implemented ERPs, this case study is particularly interesting, because it was one of the first implementations of SAP®’s student administration system and therefore presents a different perspective from other more prevalent ERPs in the higher education market.