https://www.mdu.se/

Date                   May 28, 2009

Level                  Bachelor thesis in Business Administration/Information Technology

Authors             Jennie Andersson, Niklas Fridell, Visar Hoxha

Tutor                  Marie Mörndal

Department    HST

Title                    ERP-solutions in small to medium sized enterprises – possibilities and problems

Summary          ERP-solutions have penetrated the market for SME: s, offering the same advantages larger enterprises have enjoyed for years. For a significantly cheaper price, SME: s can nowadays acquire ERP-solutions and become more effective and increase their profit.  The authors have examined five SME: s in both the production and service company segment and have come to the conclusion that an ERP-solution would indeed benefit these companies in many levels but also induce certain obstacles the examined companies must overcome, both financial and organizational.

Purpose            The purpose of this thesis is to examine if and how SME: s can become more efficient and developed and increase their profit by implementing an ERP-solution. Further, the purpose is to discuss which conditions that exists for the examined SME: s in order to implement an ERP-solution.

Method            The thesis consists of a qualitative research where the authors have interviewed either the owner or employees at management level by using semi-structured interviews. The results from the interviews have been analyzed based on the theoretical framework.

Result                Several improvement areas have been identified, most typically the processes are lacking efficiency in some areas even if the SME already had an ERP-solution (or similar) or did not have one at all. Most SME: s did lack the financial resources required for an ERP-solution deployment.

Conclusion      The findings show that there are development possibilities within the examined SME:s. The biggest revenue improvement would be decreased manual labor and improved processes. An ERP-solution would help the SME: s achieve that since it automates many tasks and are designed with “best practices” in mind. Despite most of the SME:s lacking financial resources for an ERP-solution, there were some exceptions which contradicted the theoretical framework, mainly because they were SME: s but acted under a larger owner/franchise chain.