Lie and Noether-like Operations for a Class of Systems of Ordinary Differential Equations

Abstract

It is evident from the last few decades that world is rapidly moving towards information technology and the developing countries are also becoming part of it. Organizations are transforming from their traditional way of doing business to new IT-based solutions for their survival, growth and competitiveness. Different Enterprise Systems are present in the market but Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is one of the most highly recognized solutions in the corporate world due to various tangible benefits like-improved administrative control and to gain real time information for making decisions right on time. Normally, ERP consist of packaged software embedded with world best practices and composed of different modules like Human Resource Management, Marketing, Finance, Productions, Sales etc. These modules are closely integrated with each other to provide cross organizational control and improved visibility of different business functions. The software packages are customized up to certain limits and based on the specific needs of the organizations. ERP is considered as a very important advancement in the field of technology of the corporate world in 1990.

The principal reason of ERP failure is commonly associated with poor management of implementation process. Implementing ERP is one of the riskiest decisions that organizations take due to high cost involvement and complex implementation process. Many researchers have pointed out high failure rate in ERP implementation projects in terms of cost overrun, schedule overrun and failure to achieve the desire objectives. This implies that an in-depth research study is required to mitigate the failures factors. ‘ERP implementation failures’ is one of the most common topic discussed by the researchers and industry experts. But there are very few researchers who talk about the mitigation strategies to overcome these failure issues. Literature shows that mostly available standards and guidelines are for the developed instead for the developing countries. Whereas the developing countries are also moving towards enterprise systems rapidly. There are some specific challenges from which developing countries have to pass through that are entirely different conditions from the implied assumption of technology advanced countries. Pakistan is also one of those countries where many organizations are moving towards ERP system but the comparative growth of ERP implementation is not promising like other countries of the world and of South Asia with similar economies and cultural back ground. The main reason behind this is that there is lack of comprehensive guidelines for developing countries. No study in available in the literature that contains guidelines for ERP implementation projects for the in industry in Pakistan. It is evident from the previous studies that to make a project successful there are some critical factors that can differ from region to region which require special care and must be strictly monitored and controlled. The study will provide strategy that will be helpful to handle issues faced by the industry in Pakistan during the implementation of ERP. These identified factors will guide what to avoid and what to practice to achieve success. This study is based on the exploratory mixed method of sequential research design in depth relationship among the variables and to cross validate the variable discovered. The basic objective to use qualitative method is to develop the strategy and quantitative method is to validate the component of strategy. CSF and CFF have been explored using quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection and then results are analyzed. Qualitative data has been collected using semi-structured interviews from the people who have core involvement in ERP implementation process from both client organizations and the vendor organization of Pakistan. Similarly, quantitative data has been collected by sharing online survey using self-established instrument with the people involved in in ERP implementation process. The survey instrument was developed containing 48 questions based on the mapping of the factors obtained from literature review and interviews. Different tools have been used for data analysis like NVIVO for qualitative data analysis and SPSS, EFA, PLS-structure modeling for quantitative data analysis. Finally, the results are merged to reach on final conclusion. Case study methodology is used to implement and validate the proposed strategy in a company where ERP is in process of implementation. The core objective to conduct this research study is to formulate an effective ERP implementation strategy that can reduce cost, minimize complexity and support organizations to gain the desired outcomes. Different components of strategy are explored like Role of Top Management, Role of Project Management, Change Management, Strategy to Involve Users in Trainings, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Techniques and Role of Vendor are explored. Components of proposed guidelines are validated using face validity, content validity. The proposed strategy will provide a structured approach based on the critical factors in the implementation part and will be a huge contribution in the body of knowledge for not only the organizations in Pakistan but also in other developing countries and will work as business game changer.