Advantages and Disadvantages of Adopting ERP Systems Served as SaaS from the Perspective of SaaS Users

Abstract

Scholarly reviews expound that current prevailing on-premise Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems could not be sufficient for enterprises to form highly dynamic units around vibrant requirements of the market. In response to satisfying ever-changing demands of the market, cloud computing has been recently emerged which its basic promise is convergence of IT efficiency and business agility in information technology. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is the most common type of cloud service which has been heralded to be a serious alternative for on-premise software. Considering shortages of current on-premise ERPs and high potentiality of SaaS to be as an alternative for on-premise software, this study seeks to empirically understand real advantages and disadvantages of adopting ERP systems served as SaaS from the perspective of SaaS users. "Real advantages and disadvantages" in this study are the ones which are not only certified through literature but also through empirical data. Grounded in literature review and personal communication with two Information Systems (IS) professionals, 19 items were considered as advantages and 12 items as disadvantages of ERP as SaaS adoption categorized in three groups of strategic, financial, and technical. Survey data of 90 responses were collected and analyzed out of 212 contacts with industry experts in different types of business and sizes of the enterprise in Sweden through nonprobability sampling. By application of Non-parametric test, our data analysis revealed that users of ERP as SaaS believed in five real advantages in adoption of ERP as SaaS while they did not agree with any real disadvantages in such adoption. They accepted that adoption of ERP as SaaS a) helps users to run their business more globally, b) enhances users’ business to go mobile, c) reduces large up-front investment of users on resource provision, d) saves technology costs, and e) helps users not to be concerned about management and maintenance of the ERP as SaaS. Moreover, our final results showed that majority of every enterprise size do not have plan of adopting ERP as SaaS in the future. Based on the findings, detailed discussion will be given about social consequences of the results and underlying reasons which could have impact on recognition of few real advantages and no real disadvantages in this study.

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