ERP - Cost or Benefit?

A conference paper explaining the background of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and the practical elements of its implementation. The basic premise of the paper is that too few such implementations deliver real business benefits and that there are a number of practical steps to avoid falling into this trap. The issues explored in this relatively brief paper were later expanded into the book 'ERP From The Front Line'. This book, in the form of a novel, takes the reader through a series of practical examples - problems and solutions - surrounding the adoption of the (fictional) SCX package in the (equally fictional) IME Corporation.