Enterprise resource planning systems maintenance activities and clients maintenance decisions among Kenyan firms

Abstract

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems hold the promise of easily integrating all processes within and around the organization with their implementations. Many of organizations have gained substantial benefit from the rich functionality and improvements to business processes after go live. The main aim of the study was to determine enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems maintenance activities and clients’ maintenance decisions among Kenyan firms during the maintenance and support phase. The study had the following specific objectives; establish the activities of ERP maintenance and support by Kenyan adopter firms , determine the factors influencing ERP maintenance and support success in ERP adopter Kenya firms and determine if there is a relationship between ERP maintenance decisions that clients make and based on their ERP maintenance and support status. The method of research used for this study was descriptive survey. Descriptive survey is a study designed to depict the characteristics of a particular variable and comparisons made among the variables in an accurate way. The population of the study was companies that have already implemented systems in Kenya for at least 1 year ERP and are on active maintenance with the vendors for ERP products from SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics. The ERP adopter firms in Kenya carry out similar maintenance activities across all business sectors and the ERP products. Further, the study confirmed that, top management support, technological fit, Organizational fit and external vendor support all had a positive impact on the success of this phase. The Kenyan ERP adopters reported general success in ERP maintenance phase. With overall success reported, Kenyan adopter firms planned to integrate with other business systems, increase their maintenance and support budgets upgrade to newer versions. In addition, there are plans of to replace ERPs being used currently. The study confirmed that there is a positive relationship on the maintenance status and the decisions that the adopter firms planned to make in the next 2 years. The researcher concludes that the Kenya ERP adopter firms have recorded success in the post go live phase. Further, the Kenyan ERP adopter firms carry out similar ERP maintenance and support activities.