Critical Failure Factors in ERP Implementation: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

It has been more than two decades of experience adopting and implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in business. However, the success of these systems remains debatable. The failure rate of ERP systems is relatively high, despite the fact that success stories of ERPs are recorded in earlier research studies. The main purpose of this study is to identify and assess the degree of ERP implementation failure factors encountered by organisations and confirm which is significant in various countries. A systematic literature review was performed, considering research studies published between 2000 to 2022 for this purpose. This study critically reviewed 55 relevant articles published in reputable journals. The systematic literature review identified 35 failure factors categorised as the most critical based on their occurrence in past studies. The top five failure factors included lack of top management support, Inadequate education and training, the mismatch between the system and business strategies, lack of project management performers, and users unwilling to use the ERP system. According to the country-wise evaluation, "Lack of top management support" is a critical failure factor of the ERP implementation for all clusters. However, the more frequent impact for Asian countries, with a moderate impact for European countries and less for North American countries. Also, "Inadequate education and training" is a major Critical failure factor for Asian and North American countries during ERP implementation projects.This is the first comprehensive systematic review attempted to identify the Critical failure factor during the implementation of ERP systems.