Browsing by Author "Mäkeläinen, Aleksi"

This paper aims to find out how should a Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system development process be organized in a functional organization in order to make it as efficient as possible. A real global organization and their ERP development process currently in use at their site in Helsinki Finland is being used as an example of the structure and functionality of these systems as well as the challenges which organizations usually face in the post-implementation phase of ERP systems. The name of the company has been classified since the research contains some classified information. The target Company is currently in the post-implementation phase of their new ERP system which went live a few years ago. I will describe the tools currently in use as well as their functionality as accurately as possible. The main objective of this thesis is to find out new ways to organize a development process in a functionally organized organization such as the target Company. One of the biggest challenges for the target Company (considering IT) is change management – how to control all the changes taking place in a constantly evolving business environment where changes in the ERP-system are not limited to one system or one location? The governance model in use at the target Company is being used as an example of the functionality of the development tools which can be used in order to ensure the integration of global and local solutions. Their system is compared to other models found from literature and other real-life organizations. Main references in the theoretical part are theories from the field of sociology as well as especially chosen theories from the field of organizational studies with a sociological twist. The most important referred academics are: Wanda J. Orlikowski, Hyötyläinen & Kalliokoski, Harold J. Leavitt, Shayne C. Kavanagh, Nurminen, Reijonen & Vuorenheimo and McLaughlin & Skinner. In the empirical part ERP implementations are not being studied just as technological changes, they are observed as larger multidimensional social processes involving individual agents, technologies and job requirements as well as other key elements of change. Since answers are sought for questions such as why some people feel the way they do towards the current process, a qualitative method has been chosen as the scientific method of this research. The target Company employee’s general feeling towards the current change process has been concretized by interviewing 18 participants from different organizational functions and several levels of organizational hierarchy. Five general themes typical to each organizational function are lined up. The idea of the qualitative analysis is to find out key discourses and themes of all of the functions, and underline themes and discourses that seem to be universal to the organization in question. After analyzing the discourses and themes on an organizational level, five universal problematic discourses remain. Eventually five 'development ideas' aimed to solve them are presented as the final analytical implications. The development ideas presented in this thesis help the target Company to streamline their current development process, future implementation projects as well as their current management processes related to the ERP development process.