Enterprise systems maturity: A practitioners' perspective

Abstract

Organizations continue to adopt enterprise systems (ES) technology to reduce costs and improve processes with the aim of achieving business benefits. The purpose of this study is to examine the utilization of ES technology and its information by New Zealand (NZ) organizations and their ability to derive benefits. The study does so by exploring (a) how ES data are transformed into knowledge, (b) how this knowledge is utilized to achieve benefits within NZ organizations, and (c) critical success factors for this process. This study gains insights through a "practitioners' perspective" of ES vendors, ES consultants, and IT research firms in a NZ context. Key findings indicate that although many ES implementations in New Zealand are several years old, companies have only recently started tracking benefits through analytical processes to optimize and realize business value from their enterprise systems investment.