Strategic exploitation of ERP for e-business

Modern organisations currently face a multitude of technologies that are seeking to climb on to the budgetary agenda of management boards. Two of the main contenders are enterprise resource planning (ERP) and e-business related technologies. There appears to be a misunderstanding, which has not been well-publicised, regarding the relationship between ERP and e-business, particularly the viewpoint that ERP is a platform for e-business. This paper, based on research from an ongoing information systems (IS) investigation project at a large multinational company, examines this relationship. The paper discusses different scenarios of ERP implementation status that organisations may find themselves part of. It examines the components of e-business success, namely the visibility of information, processes and technology that will be either enabled or restricted by ERP. What transpires from this research is that, for many start-ups, e-business becomes synonymous with business in general. We argue that e-business should form part of the corporate strategy and that an IS or IT strategy should form the basis for determining ERP implementation structures, thereby ensuring that e-business requirements become the platform for ERP.