Developing business advantages from the technological possibilities of enterprise information systems

Abstract

Organizations are increasingly implementing Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in particular. Despite the notable studies on the advantages of an EIS, many organizations are not satisfied with the benefits or advantages gained. At the same time, it is assumed that such systems with increasing innovations and technological enhancements would generate abundant business advantages, if organizations exploited these opportunities. The investigation in this work drew on the sociomateriality perspective, using imbrication notion, and focused on a telecomm case study to examine how organizations can exploit the technological possibilities of an EIS to create business benefits. The study findings suggest that business benefits can be achieved when the EIS as a technical system is interwoven with the organizational work in which both dynamically change in practice (not from the technical features of the system), when the system provides interesting and beneficial technological possibilities that attract organizations, and when the firm has the organizational capabilities to translate these possibilities into real business benefits.