Profitability risks in Enterprise Resource Planning projects from the vendor perspective

本研究计划旨在增进我们对各种风险如何影响企业资源规划（ERP）项目盈利能力的理解。ERP项目尤其危险，因为它们重构了组织的核心业务流程。因此，组织通常与专门的供应商签订合同，以转移实施ERP项目的风险。专业供应商表现出更丰富的经验和能力，确保ERP项目的成功和盈利能力。然而，失败的ERP项目表明，实践和研究都缺乏对风险向供应商转移的透彻理解。这是第一次，这项研究计划提供了独特的机会，从供应商的角度来调查风险转移。建议的研究项目可以访问一个独特的数据集，该数据集包括纵向风险评估、项目报告和2004年至2011年间来自领先的ERP供应商的1188个ERP项目的盈利能力数据。研究计划的重点是开发一个纵向模型，从供应商的角度解释风险如何影响ERP项目的盈利能力。我们用定性分析来补充定量调查。研究结果将与提供数据集的ERP供应商的专家持续反映。这种方法有助于建立对风险如何影响项目盈利能力的更丰富的理解。我们进一步通过对欧洲ERP服务提供商的基于调查的研究来补充这种方法，以避免只研究单一提供商的任何偏见。本研究计划旨在通过(1)首次从供应商的角度研究ERP项目的风险，(2)对ERP项目风险和盈利能力的定量和定性数据进行三角测量，以及(3)增加ERP项目客户和供应商之间风险转移的纵向动态视角，来提高我们对ERP项目等风险项目的理解。

This research proposal aims at advancing our understanding of how various risks affect the profitability of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects. ERP projects are particularly risky as they restructure core business processes of an organization. Hence, organizations typically contract specialized vendors to transfer the risks of conducting the ERP project. Specialized vendors exhibit greater experience and competencies that ensure the success and in turn the profitability of an ERP project. However, spectacularly failing ERP projects show that both practice and research lack a thorough understanding of the transfer of risks to the vendor. For the first time, this research proposal offers the unique opportunity to investigate the transfer of risks from the vendor perspective. The proposed research project has access to a unique data set that consists of longitudinal risk assessments, project reports, and profitability data of 1,188 ERP projects from a leading ERP vendor between 2004 and 2011.The research proposal focuses on developing a longitudinal model hat explains how risks affect the profitability of an ERP project from the vendor perspective. We complement a quantitative investigation by qualitative analyses. Research results will be continuously reflected with experts from the ERP vendor who have provided the data set. This approach facilitates to establish a richer understanding of how risks affect project profitability. We further complement this approach with a survey-based study of European ERP service providers to avoid any bias from studying a single provider only.The research proposal seeks to advance our understanding of risky projects such as ERP project by (1) studying risks in such projects for the first time from the perspective of a vendor, (2) triangulating quantitative and qualitative data on risks and profitability of ERP projects, and (3) adding a longitudinal dynamic perspective on the risk transfer between clients and vendors of ERP projects.