Critical Success Factors in ERP Systems Implementations in the Cypriot Public Sector

Abstract:   One of the major advancements in the IT industry during the 1990s was the development of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Beyond the high costs and significant amount of effort needed to implement such a system, the possible benefits for the organization in achieving more efficient operations and improving its competitive stance in the competitive business environment have been undoubted. The high failure rates of ERP systems implementations (Soh et al., 2000; Willis and Willis-Brown; 2002) have paved the way for a chase from both academicians and practitioners to understand and pinpoint the critical success factors that positively impact this type of projects’ success. Research has been done for ERP implementations in numerous environments but there is a serious gap in the literature regarding implementations in the Cypriot context. Furthermore, after the island’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004, the need for the governmental sector to harmonize its systems and processes according to EU directives and to provide efficient services through transparent processes to citizens of Cyprus urged public organizations to proceed with the adoption of ERP systems to serve these purposes from both technological and business aspects. This thesis aims to investigate the critical success factors that foster the successful rollout of ERP implementation projects in Cypriot public sector organizations. From the literature review a research proposition is devised through the development of a theoretical framework consisting of 10 critical success factors. These factors are examined in the specific project environment and their applicability and impact in successful implementations is determined. A qualitative approach has been followed, through a multiple-case study in three Cypriot public sector organizations, by conducting a set of 9 semi-structured interviews and analyzing the results to determine the theoretical framework’s fit in the particular context and furthermore to determine the criteria which are used to determine ERP implementation success in the specific projects. The results of the study indicate that project success is evaluated solely based on three criteria; time, cost and quality. In addition, 9 out of the 10 factors of the theoretical framework appear to be critical for implementation success.