Inaugural lecture for Aalto.

1. Large enterprise system implementation
challenges
Matti Rossi –
Inaugural lecture 3.10.2012
Aalto University School of Business

2. Excerpts from Bio
• Editor in chief of Communications of the Association for
Information Systems
• One year visits to Georgia State Univ., RSM Erasmus and
Claremont Graduate College
• Minority owner and former board member of MetaCase
Consulting (www.metacase.com) a spin off of the thesis
project

3. Introduction
Enterprise system (ES):
• Integrates and standardizes the core business processes
and information resources of the whole organization
• Provides a single system that allows information to be shared
across all functional and management levels
• Provides unified data definitions and semantics across an
organization
• Provides standardized processes and user interfaces across
the organization

4. Major disasters and challenged projects
• Finnish national railways ticketing system (2011)
• Finnish national electronic patient record system and
database (2002 – )
• Ajoneuvorekisteri (2000 – 2011)
• …
• Taurus: London Stock Exchange System, developed for 10
years, at the cost of 700 mil £, and never deployed (1983 –
1993)
• Nearly all major public sector IT initiatives in last 10 years
have been seriously delayed and/or have exceeded their
budgets

5. Typical problems
• Delays
e.g. New Taurus project manager after 5 years of
development: “are we any closer to the end?”
Project was scrapped in the end
• Cost overruns
e.g. Taurus initial estimate 11mil. £, final costs somewhere
between 400 – 800 mil. £
• Performance underruns
e.g. Finnish national railways ticketing system problems
• Delivering in time and on budget, but wrong system
e.g. Finnish e-health records

6. Why this matters?
• Systems developed, but not delivered, can cause tens or
hundreds of millions of € worth of losses
• E.g. Taurus
• Poorly functioning systems can cause delays, poor morale or
even absenteeism or early retirements
• E.g. Healthcare systems
• There are cases where an ES implementation gone bad has
bankrupted companies
• E.g. FoxMeyer logistics*
*Scott, Judy E., & Vessey, Iris. (2002). Managing risks in enterprise systems
implementations. Commun. ACM, 45(4), 74-81.

7. Can something be done for this?
• Generally technology is not an issue
• Large scale change processes are always difficult
• Change and project management are critical for such
projects
• Project and system scope and fit with the organization have
to be matched in early phases of the project
• Projects should be made more manageable by:
• Dividing them into manageable pieces
• Sequencing the implementation
• Being better buyers
• Demanding more from the sellers

8. Suggested solution seeking:
ENACT – ERP Development Networks in
Action
4 year Academy of Finland project
See enact.lut.fi for more info

9. Research consortium
Systems development methods and practices
Aalto University, Department of Information and Service Economy
Prof. Matti Rossi
Post Doc Researchers Hilkka Merisalo-Rantanen and Riitta Hekkala
Doctoral candidate
Erkka Niemi
Software engineering related requirements, quality factors, metrics and
feedback mechanisms
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Software Engineering
Laboratory
Prof. Kari Smolander
Knowledge management and knowledge transfer, human communication
and interactions
Tampere University of Technology, Department of Business
Information Management and Logistic
Prof. Samuli Pekkola

10. Research objectives
Empirical identification of actors in selected ERP development
projects
 Observation of communication and knowledge exchange
between the identified actors: e.g. ERP core developers,
ERP consultants, local ERP administrators and users,
facilitates,
Building an empirically grounded theoretical model to
support ERP development in the network
Identification of important quality factors in ERP projects and
development of metrics based on these factors
Active deployment of new development methods and practices
including but not limited to ERP core developers, ERP
consultants, and local ERP administrators

11. Research approach
Action Design
Research (ADR) to
build new tools,
methods, and
practices
Sein, Maung, Henfridsson, Ola, Purao, Sandeep, Rossi, Matti, &
Lindgren, Rikard. (2011). Action Design Research. MIS Quarterly, 35(2)

12. Expected results 2012-2016
Theoretical:
• Identification of ERP development network actors and practices
• Model of communication and interaction practices in ERP
development networks
• Model of information flows, including quality metrics
• Integrated and scientifically evaluated tools and methods for ERP
development
• Improved and validated ERP development processes
• Understanding of the alignment of development methods in
complex ERP development networks
Practical:
• Improved competence of ERP implementers through project result
dissemination
• Avoidance of wasted effort!

13. How can this help?
Identification of ES development network actors and practices
• Clearly identified roles and responsibilities
• Less finger pointing afterwards
• Improved accountability
Improved competence of ES implementers
• Fever disasters
• A slightly better chance of success
• In some cases systems that actually make life easier
• E.g. Finnish tax systems
Avoidance of wasted effort
• Lot of tax payer or company money saved
• Hugely improved quality of life for all stakeholders
burdened with ES/ERP implementation projects

14. Thank you
for your attention!

15. Contact information
• Matti Rossi
E-mail matti.rossi@aalto.fi
GSM 050-3835503
Visiting address:
Aalto University School of Business
Chydenia building
Runeberginkatu 22-24

16. Further reading
• Nandhakumar, J., M. Rossi, et al. (2005). "The Dynamics of
Contextual Forces of ERP Implementation." Journal of
Strategic Information Systems 14(2): 221-242.
• Mattila, M., Nandhakumar, J., Hallikainen, P., and Rossi,
M. (2010) “Reorganizing Projects through Enterprise
System, Emerging Role of Enterprise System During
Radical Organizational Change”, Proceedings of HICSS-
43, IEEE Computer Society, Koloa, HI, 2010 (Best
research paper award)