The German Mittelstand refers to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Germany, which form the backbone of the country’s economy. Numbering over one million companies, the Mittelstand employs over 20 million people, is responsible for almost 40 percent of total German gross investments and accounts for 30 percent of the exports (Hauser 2000). These enterprises are often highly innovative and entrepreneurial, and are frequently very competitive international market leaders. The primary focus of these German SMEs is usually on highly customized and specialized products and services, resulting in information systems becoming a key competitive weapon (Taylor, 1999; Voigt, 2001). The companies can rely on a highly skilled and flexible work force, which is supplied by Germany’s exceptional vocational training system. This leads to a very loyal and stable workforce, with a turnover rate of only about 3 percent. Overall, German SMEs provide a unique setting to study the design and complexity of enterprise systems. The Mittelstand companies in our sample ranged in size between 593 and 1,200 employees, with annual revenues between 64 and 378 million Euros.
Published in Chapter:
Enterprise System in the German Manufacturing Mittelstand
Tobias Schoenherr (Michigan State University, USA), Ditmar Hilpert (Reutlingen University, Germany), Ashok K. Soni (Indiana University, USA), M.A. Venkataramanan (Indiana University, USA), and Vincent A. Mabert (Indiana University, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-859-8.ch015
Abstract
Although the research on integrated enterprise systems (ES) is proliferating, the knowledge base about ES implementations, usage and experiences outside the United States is still small. This is also true for Germany, despite the crucial importance of ES in the country, and the potential uniqueness of its ES environment. Most ES research to date has also been focusing on larger corporations, neglecting the challenges and issues that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have been experiencing. Collectively often referred to as the Mittelstand, German SMEs form the backbone of the German economy. This chapter brings attention to these areas by describing observations obtained from eight SMEs in the German manufacturing sector. These findings about ES implementation, usage, and experiences are reported and summarized along nine points of interest.