Why Focus on Roles when Developing Future ERP Systems

Abstract

In this paper the question “Why software vendors focus on roles when they aim at developing the future enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems?” is discussed. At the moment there is increasing interest in developing ERP systems that support a person's different working roles in the organisation, which could be described as role-based ERPs. It could be asked whether this is a reaction to the well-known problem of misalignment between users' requirements for ERP systems and what functionality ERP systems de facto support the organisation with. The question also relates to a discussion about the impact ERP systems have on users and how they are affected by the implementation, as well as the resistance to change that is often seen in an ERP implementation. One conclusion is that ERPs can have different influencing roles in an organisation, which range between increased control and increased agility. This can definitely be seen as an influencing factor for why role-based ERPs are in focus. The main conclusion delivered is that development of future ERPs could benefit from having a role-based perspective, but it is necessary to combine this with a business process perspective; if not, the gap between delivered functionality and needed functionality will still exist.