Modelling a systematic process development for improving the performance and user satisfaction in educational ERP System using project management practices

Abstract

Purpose – Purpose of this paper is to highlight the gaps and lacuna in the current ERP implementation models in higher educational institutes for achieving the ROI in terms of user satisfaction and addressing the needs of all the stake holders in terms of better efficiency, total integration of functioning modules, better productivity by mapping the possibility of Project Management standards and best practices to handle the ERP implementation project.

The case study compares three higher educational institutes, their implementation challenges, efforts, roadmap and expected versus actual ROI in terms of user satisfaction, productivity, efficiency and accuracy of the reports for better decision making.

This paper also check and map the validity of one of the most commonly project management frameworks, the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK), to ERP projects. Discussing each category of the framework in turn, the three cases data to illustrate where the PMBOK framework is a good fit or needs refining for ERP projects is used.

Findings – It is found that, by and large, PMBOK, because it is a very broad framework, can make the key aspects of an ERP project work better. The case analysis also raised some interesting insights about how institutes evaluate the success of such complex change management initiatives for users and various other stakeholders.

Research limitations /implications – This research work will need to be extended to cover other case studies of ERP implementation across other industries and organisational contexts to compare and follow the best practices in that domain.

Practical implications – This case analysis can be of great value to the educational institutes, Management and ERP project managers who are in the early stages of a project and need to understand and anticipate the areas which will require specific attention on their part, based on their knowledge of the specific circumstances within their organisational context.

This paper compares three different cases of a roll out of ERP implementation in three different business schools and maps the process of implementation to investigate the standards with PMI standards to propose the model which can ease the experience for other higher educational institutes to do the gap analysis and increase the user satisfaction.

Findings: As a part of this process, in the study it is found that there are many factors, key points which should be given importance while designing the ERP implementation project plan. The case analysis also highlighted some main success factors like change management techniques which should be used to achieve the goal. Comparative analysis is also done as a part of this study to understand the scenario, pain points and gap analysis mechanism followed in ERP implementation projects in other higher educational institutes.

This paper describes the key success factors as well as errors which need to be avoided in the overall execution of ERP implementation project. This paper also illustrates the standards and project management strategy which can be adopted for better results of ERP implementation projects. 

This paper also aims to study the ERP Challenges Higher education still facing in Implementation /Switching from one ERP product to other/ Performance evaluation and user satisfaction for better productivity and overall impact as well as the output in terms perfect data for decision making and better results for the users.

Challenges in higher education institutions need to be revisited to map the user requirements in the current scenario and online mode of operation for better results and total integration of various modules in totality.