Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore what design principles need to be considered in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for humanitarian organizations (HOs) to enable agile, adaptive and aligned (Triple-A) humanitarian supply chain capabilities and digitize humanitarian operations.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows an embedded case study approach with a humanitarian medical relief organization, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which engaged in a multiyear ERP design at its humanitarian field missions.FindingsThis research shows that ERP systems for humanitarian organizations should be designed as unique systems addressing humanitarian organizations' challenges and unique missions, their value generation processes, and resource base in an effort to improve organizational performance. This study presents 12 general design principles that are unique for humanitarian organizations. These design principles provide a high-level structure of guidance under which specific requirements can be further defined and engineered to achieve success.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study are based on a single case study limiting generalizability. However, the case study was analyzed and presented as an embedded case study with five autonomous subunits using different business processes and following different adoption and implementation approaches. Therefore, the findings are derived based on considerable variance reflective of humanitarian organizations beyond MSF.Practical implicationsThis study recognizes that HOs have unique routines that standard commercial ERP packages do not address easily at the field level. The primary contribution of this research is a set of design principles that consider these unique routines and guide ERP development in practice. National and international HOs that are planning to implement information systems, private companies that are trading partners of HOs as well as vendors of ERP systems that are looking for new opportunities would all benefit from this research.Originality/valueThis study fills the gap in the humanitarian literature regarding the design of ERP systems for humanitarian organizations that enable Triple–A supply chain capabilities and it advances the knowledge of the challenges of ERP design by HOs in the context of humanitarian operations.
Highlights
Humanitarian organizations (HOs) work in peculiar and complex environments
We focus on the design and deployment of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an international, independent, relief organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, and natural disasters
Our study does not focus on generic principles for core headquarter-centric application functionalities such as purchase orders, returns, claims, replenishment, finance functionalities such as cashbook, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and journal balance because those core functionalities are offered by all ERPs and do not have to be contextualized extensively to fit the unique characteristics of humanitarian operations. We focus on those unique functionalities typically not offered in standard commercial ERP software but required by HOs
Summary
Humanitarian organizations (HOs) work in peculiar and complex environments. Unpredictability of demand, lack of resources, poor infrastructure in the field, and high dependency on donor funding are among the main challenges that affect humanitarian supply chains (Gatignon et al, 2010; Kovacs and Spens, 2007). Research on information system design and implementation that enables Triple-A supply chain capabilities, especially ERP systems for humanitarian organizations, is still in its infancy (Comes and Van De Walle, 2016; Pettit and Beresford, 2009). An embedded case study gives us the opportunity to explore our research question under two units of analysis (MSF International at one level and its five semi-autonomous operational centers at another level) to uncover how differences in organizational processes and cultures could affect the design of an ERP. We used the lens of Triple-A supply chains and the embedded case study with MSF to define the ERP requirements and address our research question by proposing 12 design principles. Appendix 2 includes the questionnaire that we used for our study
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