The Interconnectedness of "Best practices": How small and midsize companies can gain from selecting the large companies' IT
2009 (English)In: Handling Plurity of Relationship Forms in Networks: From Clas to Clubs, from Cliques to Communities. Theoretical and managerial Perspectives., www.impgroup.org: IMP Group , 2009Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
Today’s companies can take advantage of state-of-the art information technology (IT) as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, business intelligence software and web-based services to facilitate their business. Many of these technologies are general in their design – i.e. they are of-the-shelf solutions available to a wider customer group. Within the information systems (IS) discipline this has lead to the managerial advice that companies should evaluate the IT-vendors prevailing market position and the prospect of their future (taking in consideration e.g. the vendors solvency). This paper is empirically focusing ERP systems – company wide information systems that comes with a standard set of pre-defined procedures called ‘best practices’ – and it presents two cases that illustrates how these ERP systems inherent the best practices that the IT-provider has developed in cooperation with its prevailing customers. Following the European theory on markets as network, i.e. an approach developed within the IMP Group, a alternative managerial advice would be to assess the vendor’s business network. Thus, this paper puts forth the later approach and discusses how a company contributes respectively benefits from selecting an IT-provider that develops enterprise systems for their respectively industrial sector. The paper puts forth two cases where one illustrates how a company is involved in the development of a IT-vendors best practices and the other case illustrates how a company gets best practices by looking at the IT-vendors customers. The two illustrating case studies are carried out at Kanthal AB, a company within the Sandvik Group, and at CH Industry AB, a small supplier to Volvo Construction Equipment. Whilst the larger company Kanthal had to go through a process of software customization to get the adequate functions in their ERP system CH Industry has instead gone with the standard package. The customization that Kanthal required has later become one of the IT provider’s features, i.e. a new best practice, something that other customers can benefit from. CH Industry has also selected the same complex and comprehensive ERP system as Kanthal even if their need, as a rather small company, should be of another nature. CH Industry has though selected a competitive standard package and they motivate their choice of ERP system by relating to the IT-provider’s customer base. Implicit CH Industry understands that the IT-provider’s customer network will mean that their ERP system will be offered continuous improvements and upgrades, and they will thereby getting state-of-the-art best practices even in the future. The paper concludes with discussing the interconnectedness of best practices – whilst Kanthal are an active partner in the development of a set of best practices, CH Industry is a company that benefits from prevailing best practices. The implication of the cases is that a company benefits from an awareness of its IT-vendor’s wider business network. Companies needs to – as well as considering the IT provider’s solvency, market position, and evaluations of the technology as advised by managerial information system theories – evaluate the IT-provider’s prevailing customers and their business procedures and preferences.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
www.impgroup.org: IMP Group , 2009.
Keywords [en]
ERP system, business relationships, business network, adaptations, interconnectedness, information technology, IT-provider, best practices
National Category
Business Administration
Research subject
Industrial Economics and Organisations
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-8341OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-8341DiVA, id: diva2:299641
Conference
The 25th IMP Conference Selecting IT‐provider based upon their customer network, 3‐5 September 2009, Marseille
Projects
Automation Region WP2E2010-02-232010-02-232014-06-25Bibliographically approved