D
IPARTIMENTO DI
DEL
RELAZIONE PER IL CONS
LAUREA
Adding Collaboration tools to ERP systems
RELATORI
Prof. Ing. Riccardo Dulmin
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni.
Prof. Ing. Davide Aloini
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni.
IPARTIMENTO DI
I
NGEGNERIA DELL
’E
NERGIA DEI
S
DEL
T
ERRITORIO E DELLE
C
OSTRUZIONI
ELAZIONE PER IL CONSEGUIMENTO DELLA
LAUREA MAGISTRALE IN INGEGNERIA GESTIONALE
ollaboration tools to ERP systems
State of the Art.
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni.
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Energia dei Sistemi, del Territorio e delle Costruzioni.
Sessione di Laurea del 30/04/2014 Anno Accademico 2012/2013
alespagnesi@gmail.com
S
ISTEMI
,
NGEGNERIA GESTIONALE
ollaboration tools to ERP systems:
IL CANDIDATO
Alessandro Spagnesi
Adding Collaboration tools to ERP systems: State of the Art.
Alessandro Spagnesi
Sommario
Negli ultimi anni, i sistemi ERP stanno rivolgendo la loro attenzione alla collaborazione (ERPII) ed, in contemporanea, nelle aziende si assiste ad un incremento di utilizzo di soluzioni di Enterprise Social Network (ESN). I sistemi ERP risultano complessi e scarsamente user-friendly, mentre le ESN tendono ad essere abbandonate se non legate al core business aziendale. Mirando a semplificare l’utilizzo dei sistemi ERP da parte degli utenti, alcuni attori del mercato hanno deciso di rivolgere la propria attenzione all’integrazione delle funzionalità social all’interno dei gestionali ERP.
L’obiettivo generale del lavoro di tesi è quello di analizzare il fenomeno dell’integrazione tra strumenti social e sistemi ERP, considerando due punti di vista, quello accademico e quello del mercato. Questa analisi di valore ambivalente riveste un ruolo importante per ottenere una visione a 360° dell’argomento studiato. In questa tesi sono presentati lo stato dell’arte della ricerca accademica, i benefici attesi e gli ostacoli dell’integrazione, un framework sull’integrazione tra social, ERP e contesto aziendale, la nascita potenziale del mercato di Social Enterprise, la visione di casi di studio ed esempi applicativi, i benefici e gli ostacoli reali estrapolati dalle prime implementazioni. I risultati ottenuti dalle varie analisi sull’argomento principale, verranno infine discussi.
Abstract
In recent years, ERP systems are moving towards collaboration (ERP II) and at the same time it’s growing use of Enterprise Social Network (ESN) in the companies. ERP systems have the issue of being very complex, while the ESN platforms tend to be abandoned if they are not related to the core business. Some members of the market have decided to bring their attention to the integration of social tools into ERP systems aiming to simplify the use of ERP systems by users .
The overall objective of the thesis work is to analyze the phenomenon of integration between social tools and ERP systems, from academic and market point of view. The use of double path was an important choice to get a 360 degree view of the topic studied. In this thesis we have presented the state of the art of academic research, the expected benefits and obstacles to integration, the possible obstacles to integration, a framework on the integration of social tools, ERP and business context, the potential creation of Social Enterprise market, the vision of case studies and practical examples, the real benefits and the real obstacles extrapolated from the first implementations. The results obtained from different analyzes on the main topic will be finally discussed.
Index
Sommario ... 2
Abstract ... 2
1. INTRODUCTION ... 8
1.1. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION ... 8
1.2. THESIS OBJECTIVE ... 9
1.3. OVERVIEW ... 10
1.4. ERP SYSTEMS ... 11
1.4.1. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ERP ... 11
1.4.2. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ERP PRODUCTS ... 16
2. ACADEMIC RESEARCH ANALYSIS ... 19
2.1. RESEARCH RULES ... 20
2.2. DATA COLLECTION... 22
2.3. DATA ANALYSIS ... 25
2.3.1. CITATION AND TEXT ANALYSIS ... 26
2.4. EVIDENCE ... 28
2.4.1. GROUPING RESEARCH PAPERS... 29
2.4.2. SOCIAL TOOLS AND NEW CAPABILITIES ... 30
2.4.3. HIGHLIGHTS OF INTEGRATION ... 31 2.5. OUTPUT ... 37 2.5.1. BENEFITS ... 38 2.5.2. OBSTACLES ... 49 2.5.3. CROSSING-STRUCTURING GRAPH ... 54 2.5.4 FRAMEWORK ... 56
2.6 RESEARCH ANALYSIS OUTLINE ... 58
3. VENDOR MARKET ANALYSIS ... 59
3.1.1. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE MARKET ... 60
3.1.2. ERP MARKET ... 63
3.1.3. ESN MARKET ... 65
3.1.4. MARKET ANALYSIS PERSPECTIVES ... 67
4. PRODUCT ANALYSIS... 69
4.1. PRODUCT RESEARCH ... 69
4.2. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS ... 70
4.2.1. SAP SOLUTION ... 71
4.2.2. Infor SOLUTION ... 81
4.2.3. INTEGRATION OVERVIEW ... 93
4.3. EXAMPLES AND CASE STUDIES ... 94
4.3.1. SELECTING EXAMPLES AND CASES ... 95
4.3.2. EXAMPLES ... 96
4.3.3. CASE STUDIES ... 103
5. VENDOR MARKET OUTLINE ... 113
6. CONCLUSIONS: HIGHLIGHTS AND FUTURE ... 118
RINGRAZIAMENTI ... 124
BIBLIOGRAFIA ... 125
APPENDIX ... 128
FIG. TITLE PAG.
1 Thesis structure 10
2 Three tier ERP architecture (source: The evolution of ERP systems: a historical perspective - M.A.Rashid)
14
3 Evolution of ERP and ERP products 15
4 Modules used to expand the research field 23
5 Example of Publish or Perish research 25
6 Years of papers processing 27
7 Words cloud 28
8 Hypothesis of user centric architecture modelled by social BPM ProcessCodi (Source: Lee et al. 2011)
32
9 Social platform with customer order like social network examples (Source: Andersson 2010)
33
10 Example of Social BPM platform (Source: Lee et al. 2011) 34
11 Research framework 38
12 Expected benefits from integration between social collaboration and ERP 48
13 Possible obstacles and challenges 53
14 Cross – Structuring graph 55
15 Framework about the relationship between social collaboration and company came out from academic analysis.
57
16 Results of the questionnaire on the company’s complexity (Source: IDC Manufacturing)
62
17 Results of questionnaire on most significant barriers against operational excellence (Source: IDC Manufacturing)
62
18 ERP Value Matrix 2H2013 (Source NUCLEUS 2013 ERP Value Matrix) 64 19 Framework about creation of Social enterprise market 68
20 Infor symbol 70
21 SAP symbol 70
22 SAP Headquarter 71
23 Infor Headquarter 81
24 Hook and Loop symbol 81
25 Infor 10X map 82
26 Infor ION communication 84
27 Infor Ming.le home with post about production 96
28 Layout of the information exchange through Ming.le and LN 97
29 Infor Ming.le post in production group 98
30 Layout of the information exchange through Ming.le and Syteline 99
31 Machines area of System21 into Infor Ming.le 100
32 Layout of the information exchange through Ming.le and System21 100
34 Replenishment process with Yammer 102
35 Preferred sands symbol 104
36 Extraction site 105
37 Johnstone symbol 107
38 Johnstone vectors 108
39 DAB symbol 109
40 DAB electric pumps 110
41 Boskalis symbol 111
42 Boskalis ship 111
43 Framework about vendor market solutions 116
44 Architecture proposed by the Altea 123
45 Our framework 123
TAB. TITLE PAG.
1 First research keywords 22
2 Quantitative results of first research 22
3 Extended research keywords 24
4 Quantitative results of extended research 24
5 Citation analysis keywords 26
6 Summary table of database papers 26
7 Second citation analysis keywords 28
8 Distribution of papers 29
9 Social BPMN notation (Source: Fraternali et al. 2011) 36
10 References macro groups about expected benefits 43
11 Expected benefits from integration between social tools and ERP 47
12 References macro groups about possible obstacles 50
13 Possible obstacles to integration between social tools and ERP 52
14 Cross- Structuring values 54
15 Main social platforms on the market 67
16 Solution summary table 71
17 SAP overview 72
18 SAP JAM summary table 80
19 Infor overview 81
20 Differences from traditional and ION middleware 84
21 Infor10X summary table 92
22 Overview of integration between Social and ERP 93
23 Case studies overview 104
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1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we are going to give the motivation and structure of our thesis work on the integration of social tools and ERP systems. Here the main aims to introduce the readers to read our work, and in particular to answer the following question:
• What is the state of research in relation to the topic? • Are there integrated solutions on the market?
• What is the purpose of this thesis? • What are the outline of the work?
1.1. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
In recent years the use of social networks in the world has developed. The companies themselves have started to use the Enterprise Social Network (ESN), thus trying to enter in the business world the ease of communication linked to the functionality of Web 2.0. The problem of ESN is that often they are not related to the core business of the company and for this reason once implemented tend to be abandoned.
ERP systems are the most complete in the world of business management, inserting the social collaboration within the ERP could bring new life to the market of ICT and new features for the enterprise management to 360 °.
The integration of social tools and ERP systems is a very recent and being drafted for this reason we have tried to have a wider vision possible. Our job has started from the main problem, and then it has split on two parallel paths, academic research and the market; the two paths will be joined for the final conclusions.
The reasons that have led us to explore the two fields are the followings: • The topic treated is new and under development;
• In the field of ICT the market often drives the research, developing new solutions compared to those designed by the researchers;
• Evaluation of the offered solutions from academic research are available on the market.
1.2. THESIS OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the integration of social tools and ERP from the academic and the market point of view. Trying to provide information on expected benefits, present obstacles, real solutions on the market and explanatory framework. Our thesis tries to give answers to the following key questions:
• State of art of academic research in the field of social ERP;
• Expected benefits from the integration of social tools according to the researchers; • Possible obstacles to the integration according to the researchers;
• Offer an explanatory framework for the evaluation of the integration of social, ERP and business context;
• Current state of the market;
• Presence of integrated solutions between ESN and ERP on the market;
• Evaluation of real cases and examples to evaluate the effective benefits and the presence of obstacles;
1.3. OVERVIEW
Fig. 1 – Thesis structure
As explained in the framework (Fig.1) this thesis is divided into 3 section:
• Section1: in this section we explain the motivations of our work, we underline the questions that we try to give answers and we show the history of the evolution of ERP systems and products of the major software house on the market;
• Section2: this section is composed by Research analysis and Vendor analysis. In research step we carry out the academic analysis and the literature reviews pointing out evidence of the analysis of papers. We have analyzed the state of the art of academic research. We have conducted analysis of the expected benefits from the integration and possible obstacles against integration. We suggest an explanatory framework of the integration between social, ERP and business context. In vendor
step we have carried out a market analysis of ICT, ERP and ESN providing a future vision of the market of social enterprise. Among identified solutions, we have analyzed two ESN integrated solutions into business management modules, specifically SAP JAM and Infor10X. We have searched, whenever possible, application examples and case studies, to assess the presence of benefits and obstacles. The main case study is the American company Preferred sands. We propose a framework on the situation of market vendor solutions;
• Section3: in this section we present the main evidence and the conclusions on the integration of social tools into ERP systems.
1.4. ERP SYSTEMS
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are integrated software solutions used to manage any Organization's resources. Actually, ERP systems offer much more than their literal meanings. Not only do they make resource planning, but also integrate all departments and functions of a company into a single computer system that can serve all different departments' needs (Genoulaz & Millet, 2005; Klaus, Rosemann, & Gable, 2000). According to Slooten and Yap (1999), ERP is the first approach that integrally combines business management and IT concepts. ERP systems are accepted to be one of the most important developments in the Information Technology (IT) world and also the most popular standard business software of the last decade (Davenport, 1998; Robey, Ross, & Boudreau, 2002).
ERP systems are now ubiquitous in large businesses and the current move by vendors is to repackage them for small to medium enterprises (SMEs).
1.4.1. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ERP 1960: First steps
The needs of businesses are changing from day to day. In the 1960s when the focus was just on production, software packages were being designed for handling inventory (Gumaer, 1996), the primary competitive thrust was cost, which resulted in product-focused manufacturing strategies based on high-volume production, cost minimization, and assuming stable economic conditions. The introduction of newly computerized reorder point
(ROP) systems, including economic order quantity and economic reorder point, satisfied basic manufacturing planning and control (MPC) needs of these firms.
1970: MRP
In 1970s, companies could haven’t large quantities of inventory (Umble et al., 2003). Due to the need for software designed specifically for manufacturing operations, Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) systems, which were planning the product or part requirements according to the master production schedule, were introduced (Gumaer, 1996; Rashid et al., 2002; Umble et al., 2003). MRP represented a huge step forward in the materials planning process. A master production schedule, supported by bill of material files that identified the specific materials needed to produce each finished item, was a revolution for manufacturing companies.
With MRP there was a formal mechanism for keeping priorities valid in a changing manufacturing environment (Oden, Langenwalter, & Lucier, 1993; Ptak & Schragenheim, 2000). In the late 1970s the competition was shifting towards marketing, which resulted in the adoption of target-market strategies with an emphasis on greater production integration and planning. MRP responded to market needs with the integration between forecasting, master scheduling, procurement, plus shop floor control.
1980: MRPII
Probably the term manufacturing resource planning II (MRP-II) was coined to identify the newer systems’ capabilities. In the 1980s manufacturing competitive went to quality with the emergence of the quality ‘‘gurus’’ like Deming, Juran, Crosby, Ishikawa, and others. At the beginning of ’80, the firm worked with relatively small firms that had a need for general ledger, payroll and accounts payable as well as manufacturing planning and control. The idea of an integrated software package where sales, inventory and purchasing transactions updated both inventory and accounting information was an innovation: MRPII systems can synchronize the materials with production requirements.
Manufacturing strategy emphasized greater process control and a focus on reducing overhead costs. The closed-loop scheduling, enhanced shop floor reporting, and linkages to due-date scheduling and procurement, plus detailed cost reporting features of the ever-developing MRP-II systems, were designed to support these new initiatives.
MRPII is innovative because included areas such as shop floor, distribution management, project management, finance, human resource and engineering (Rashid et al., 2002). However, the shortcomings of MRPII in managing a production facility's orders, production plans, and inventories, and the need to integrate new techniques led together to the development of a rather more integrated solution called ERP (Chung & Snyder, 1999).
It is clear that the ERP applications of today have evolved from MRP and MRPII systems.
1990: ERP
The Gartner Group is credited for coining the term ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ for a concept they developed in the 1990’s for the next generation MRPII systems (Dahlen & Elfsson, 1999; Keller, 1999). The concept posited to integrate software applications of manufacturing beyond MRPII to other functions such as finance and human resources. In accordance with Russell and Taylor (1995) ERP as an updated MRPII with relational database management, graphical user interface, and client-server architecture.
It is not so hard to understand why ERP systems gained so much importance in the market. In the very beginning of the 1990's, when the business world moved ever closer to a completely collaborative model, there was a high level of competition in the market and competitor organizations looked for ways of gaining competitive advantage against their opponents. It is not wrong to say that ERP systems gained importance as they arrived at a time when process improvement and accuracy of information became critical strategic issues (Yen & Sheu, 2004).
Enterprise systems employ thin client/server (C/S) technology or client/ fat server (C/FS) architecture, creating a decentralized computing environment. In a C/S system a number of client devices operated by end users such as desktop PCs request services from application servers, which in turn get the requested service-related information from the database servers. The general practice is to have tier architecture such as in Fig.2. In this three-tier system the user interface runs on the client. The client/server system functions are performed following three layers of logic:
• Presentation Layer (Front Tier): Graphical user interface (GUI) or browser for data entry or accessing system functions;
• Application Layer (Middle Tier): Business rules, functions, logic, and programs acting on data received/transferred from/to the database servers;
• Database Layer (Back Tier): Management of the organization’s operational or transactional data including metadata;
This logical arrangement helps the ERP user interface to run on the clients, the processing modules o run on the middle-tier application servers, and the database system to run on the database servers.
Fig. 2 - Three tier ERP architecture (source: The evolution of ERP systems: a historical perspective - M.A.Rashid)
2000: EXTENDED ERP AND ERPII
As Lawton (2000) claimed the improvement of the internet has shown tremendous impact on every aspect of the IT sector including the ERP systems. This environment of accessing systems resources from anywhere anytime has helped ERP vendors extend their ERP systems to integrate with newer external business modules such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Sales Force Automation (SFA), Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS), Business Intelligence (BI), and e-business capabilities (Rashid et al., 2002). This proves that borders of ERP systems are being extended continuously.
The next step is the ERP II. Enterprises are starting to transform in more-agile, core-competency-based entities that strive to position the enterprise optimally within the supply chain and the value network. In a collaborative world, enterprises must compete not only on the availability, cost and quality of their products and services, but also on the quality of the information they can publish for consumption by collaborating partners.
ERP II’s domain expands beyond ERP to include non manufacturing industries. Functions addressed within these industries expand beyond the broad manufacturing, distribution and financial areas to include those specific to an industry sector or a particular industry. The Web-centric, designed-to-integrate architectures of ERP II products are so different from monolithic ERP architectures as to eventually require a complete transformation. ERP II data expands from ERP’s attempt to store all data within the enterprise to handling data distributed throughout a trading community. ERP II offers great opportunities, but to provides a new vision needs new technologies and functional expansion.
1.4.2. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ERP PRODUCTS
The first test of MRP was born in the late 1960s through a joint effort between J.I. Case, a manufacturer of tractors and other construction machinery, in partnership with IBM.
The availability of random access memory (RAM) was the key that changed the game and made MRP possible.
Initial MRP solutions were big, clumsy and expensive. They required a large technical staff to support the mainframe computers at first the IBM7094 and later IBM’s 360s and 370s. The development of ever faster and higher capacity disk (random access) storage was a major enabling technology for the development of more integrated business information systems. In 70’s IBM introduces COPICS (communications oriented production information and control system), with the objective of providing ‘‘a series of concepts that outline an approach to an integrated computer-based manufacturing control system’’ (COPICS, 1972). The mid-1970s saw the birth of major software companies that would later become key ERP vendors. In 1972 five engineers in Mannheim, Germany, started up SAP . In 1975 brothers Lawson founded Lawson Software and in 1977 the informatics business man Larry Ellison sets up Oracle Corporation. In 1978 Jan Baan in Barneveld (Netherlands) founded Baan Corporation.
In 1975 IBM offered its Manufacturing Management and Account System (MMAS) which Bill Robinson from IBM considers a true precursor to ERP. It created general ledger postings and job costing plus forecasting updates emanating from both inventory and production transactions and could generate manufacturing orders from customer orders using either a standard bill of material or a bill of material attached to the customer order. Accounts receivable transactions were generated by customer order activity, as well as accounts payable transactions against purchase order activities. In 1978 the IBM mini computer System 34 was released as was a new integrated suite of applications called manufacturing, accounting and production information and control system (MAPICS). This integrated application expanded MMAS capabilities in the fields of general ledger, accounts payable, order entry and invoicing, accounts receivable, sales analysis, payroll, data collection systems support, product and production definitions, inventory management, material requirements planning, production monitoring and control capabilities.
Developments in hardware and software brought MRP in technology obsolescence phase, the new technologies support increasing numbers of functions while offering the advantage of integration.
In 1978 SAP released a more highly integrated version of its software, called the SAP R/2 system. R/2 took full advantage of the then current mainframe computer technology, allowing for interactivity between modules as well as additional capabilities such as order tracking.
In the 80 alternatives arise thanks to IBM were programmed in RPG2, and because digital equipment corporation (DEC) during this time developed mini-computer systems that ran the multiuser UNIX operating system. This offered the possibility of real-time capture of transactions and better decision support since reports could be requested on demand. In the late 1980s, IBM’s MAPICS hit its high water mark: Bill Robinson estimates that as many as 65% of all manufacturing installations were using the software running on IBM System 38 and AS400 computer systems.
With the addition of PeopleSoft, all of the major ERP software companies were now in place. At the end of the 1980s IBM came out with an update to their COPICS software that introduced the new acronym CIM for Computer Integrated Manufacturing. This newer CIM framework offered a ‘‘comprehensive strategy to help integrate information in a consistent, effective manner across the enterprise’’. The framework had three levels of support: the top level supported the functional areas and included Marketing, Engineering and Research, Production Planning, Plant Operations, Physical Distribution, and Business Management. The supporting layer included administrative support, application development support and decision support. The bottom layer was a core series of applications including database, communications and presentation tools.
The term enterprise resource planning (ERP) was coined in the early 1990s by the Gartner Group (Wylie, 1990). Their definition of ERP included criteria for evaluating the extent that software was actually integrated both across and within the various functional silos.
The year 1992 marked the release of SAP’s R/3 product. The main feature that distinguished R/3 from previous ERP systems was its use of client-server three tier hardware architecture (Fig,2). This setup allowed the system to run on a variety of computer platforms such as UNIX and Windows NT. R/3 was also designed with an open architecture approach, allowing third-party companies to develop software that would integrate with SAP R/3.
By 1999 the dominance of IBM in the 1980s had slipped as J.D. Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Baan and SAP controlled much of the ERP software market.
The following are industry statistics from 1999:
• Oracle has 41,000 customers worldwide, with 16,000 in the United States. • PeopleSoft software is used by more than 50% of the human resources market. • SAP is the world’s largest inter-enterprise software company and the world’s fourth
largest independent software supplier overall. SAP employs more than 20,500 people in more than 50 countries.
• More than 2800 of Baan’s enterprise systems have been implemented at approximately 4800 sites around the world.
Certainly, a major factor in the dramatic growth of ERP software and systems during this period was the year 2000 (or Y2K) problem that was anticipated as a major turn-of-the-century issue.
In 1997, the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) had its first introduction to ERP: at the Annual Meeting, a flip chart near the registration desk was used to call a meeting of those interested in ERP.
In 2002 the major players in order of size were SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and J.D.Edwards. Baan had fallen out by this time. J.D Edwards decided to merge with PeopleSoft and merger was announced on 2 June 2003. On Friday of the same week (6 June 2003), in a great surprise to the industry, Oracle announced a hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft. In 2005 This merger has left the industry with two major players Oracle and SAP but with the software capabilities of the five original players.
In 2000’s Oracle and SAP inserted on the market their extended ERP systems. Oracle’s FastForward Web Store (Oracle, 2001) provides applications for establishing online stores for handling transactions and services with the possibility of linking into Oracle’s ERP applications. In the SAP’s Internet-enabled integrated ERP system called mySAP.COM (SAP, 2001) is a suite of ERP, CRM and other products that can be linked together using Internet portals.
SAP and Oracle currently place great importance on cloud technology to provide solutions for ERP II. SAP implements its ERP solution in the SAP HANA platform, while Oracle provides the market with Oracle ERP Cloud Service.
2. ACADEMIC RESEARCH ANALYSIS
In the recent years, social tools have begun to integrate with business software, like CRM and SCM. Our research starts from the idea of being able to integrate social tools, typical of social networks and Web 2.0, with ERP systems present in most of the companies.
Our work has focused on the integration between ERP and the typical instruments of social media and web 2.0, such as instant messaging, collaboration platform, tagging, posting and sharing knowledge.
This chapter presents a research and review of the academic works about integration between social tools and ERP systems.
In this chapter we have collected, explored and analyzed a number of articles discussing Social collaboration platform integrated in ERP systems or modules composed ERP. The different type of documents are classified.
Form the literature analysis we proposed to discovered expected benefits and obstacles linked to integration between social tools and ERP. The main purposes of the literature analysis are:
• Review and analyze article of Social tools and management systems; • Assess the current state of academic research;
• Discovery of expected benefits of integration; • Discovery of possible obstacles of the integration;
• Creation of an explanatory framework of the relationship between social tools, ERP and business context
2.1. RESEARCH RULES
We have decided to set up our research on the concept of integration between different areas of ERP and Social tools. The terms “ERP” and “SOCIAL” can lead to different paths of research, so the first step was to set the following search method:
• Research about only published literature; • Documents having more than two pages;
• Use scientific databases for research documents;
• Keep articles that deal with social tools or application that are available in the company (ex. Social platform support);
• Delete documents that related to the use of social networks in the company (ex. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin).
Databases used for research are follows:
• IEEE-Xplore: The IEEE Xplore digital library is a powerful resource for discovery and access to scientific and technical content published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and its publishing partners. IEEE Xplore provides Web access to more than 3-million full-text documents from some of the world's most highly cited publications in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics. The content in IEEE Xplore comprises over 160 journals, over 1200 conference proceedings, more than 3,800 technical standards, over 1000 eBooks and over 300 educational courses;
• ScienceDirect: ScienceDirect is home to almost one-quarter of the world's peer-reviewed full-text scientific, technical and medical content. Over 15 million researchers, health care professionals, teachers, students and information professionals around the globe rely on ScienceDirect as a trusted source of nearly 2200 journals and close to 26000 book titles. With almost 12 million content pieces available - including pre-publication release of articles and open access content from Elsevier journals - ScienceDirect is a premier platform for discovering the world of research;
• Springer: Springer specializes in science, technology and medicine (STM). Some of the most renowned scientists in the world are Springer’s authors. All in all, 2200 English-language journals and more than 8,000 new book titles were published in
2012, in five main publishing fields: science, technology, medicine, business, and transport. Approximately 90% of Springer's publications appear on the market in English. Springer provides specialist services for the professional / B2B market. Professional practitioners rely on its expertise in the fields of healthcare, road safety education, transport, business, technology and management. Its B2B operations focus on the German and Dutch markets, with further activities in Austria, France, Spain and Switzerland. Springer offers practice-relevant information in all types of media. Regardless of whether customers are looking for books, journals, business services, seminars, trade fairs, conferences or online services;
• AISeL (AIS electronic Library): AISeL is a central repository for research papers and journal articles relevant to the information systems academic community. Within the database, it is possible browse and download conference papers for AIS-sponsored and affiliated conferences, content from AIS SIGs and Chapters and academic journals, both sponsored by the AIS and other top journals in the field;
• Emerald: The company manages a portfolio of more than 300 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.
Research is composed of different Section:
• Data collection: in this section we have focused on the research of documents regarding the integration of Social tools and ERP systems. Evaluating the results of the first research we have expanded the search field going to search for documents integration between social tools and BPM, CRM, SCM, HRM, R & D, FINANCE. After the two main phases of research, we used "Publish or Perish" to perform a literature search of the authors found;
• Data analysis: in this section a citation analysis is carried out using the software "Nvivo10" which has allowed us to freeze the documents of our research. Then we have made a detailed analysis of the texts to highlight the first features of academic research on the subject and the first interactions between social tools and management systems;
• Evidence: in this section we have listed and described the results of the analysis phase, in particular, we have: listed the features and additional capabilities of social
tools integrated with ERP, and the main evidence about integration of social tools and ERP from the academic documents;
• Output: in this section, based on the research evidence, we have provided the following output: summary framework of research, expected benefits, possible obstacles, a chart on the cover of the processes through social collaboration and we have finally done an explanatory framework of integration between social collaboration, ERP and business context.
2.2. DATA COLLECTION
The central theme of our thesis is to analyze the possible integration between ERP and social tools. The first research conducted has focused exclusively on the ERP and social tools. Following the rules of research, previously listed, a search was carried out in the academic world. To do this research have been used the keywords listed in Table 1:
KEYWORDS
ERP SOCIAL PLATFORM ERP
SOCIAL ERP SOCIAL COLLABORATION
SOCIAL COLLABORATION ERP COLLABORATION PLATFORM
ENTERPRISE 2.0 ERP II COLLABORATION
ERP II SOCIAL NETWORK ERP
WEB 2.0 ERP SOCIAL MEDIA ERP
Tab. 1 – First research keywords
As we can see from the quantitative results in Tab.2, this phase of research has not given large quantities of documents. The main problems encountered in this section were the following:
• High number of documents off topic due to the presence of the word “Social”;
• Because the topic discussed is current, the number of papers that study the integration between ERP and social tools is very low.
ABSTRACT EVALUATED FREEZING PHASE
>50 16 3
Considering the quantitative results of research focused exclusively on the social and ERP, we have decided to expand our field of research. The research was enlarged to the integration of social tools with those modules that compose an extended ERP: BPM, CRM, SCM, R & D, HRM, FINANCE (Fig.4).
Fig. 4 - Modules used to expand the research field
Broadening the field of research, we have tried another way to understand the integration between ERP and social tools. In fact, over the past five years, the production of documents on the topics has increased. Our goal is to analyze the integration between BPM, CRM, SCM, HRM, R&D and social tools to extract information on the main purpose of our work, the integration of social tools into ERP systems.
The keywords used are (Tab.3):
BPM BPM SOCIAL BPM WEB 2.0 BPM
BPM II BPM PLATFORM COLLABORATION BPM
E-BPM SOCIAL NETWORK BPM BPM NOTATION
CRM CRM SOCIAL CRM WEB 2.0 CRM
E-CRM SOCIAL MARKETING MARKETING PLATFORM
CRM II CRM COLLABORATION CRM PLATFORM
SALES PLATFORM WEB 2.0 SALES
COSTUMER COLLABORATION WEB 2.0 COSTUMER
SCM SCM SCM COLLABORATION SOCIAL SCM
SCM II SOCIAL SUPPLY CHAIN
R&D R&D R&D COLLABORATION R&D PLATFORM WEB 2.0
R&D
COWORKING PLATFORM CODESIGN PLATFORM
HRM HRM SOCIAL RECRUIMENT COLLABORATION HRM
E-HRM WEB 2.0 HRM
FINANCE E-FRM SOCIAL FRM SOCIAL FINANCE
FINANCE PLATFORM FRM PLATFORM
HUMAN INTERACTION
HUMAN INTERACTION ERP ERP SCALE INTERACTION
HUMAN INTERACTION PLATFORM HUMAN INTERACTION WEB 2.0
Tab. 3 – Extended research keywords
The amount of material found in the second research phase is listed in table 4.
FUNCTIONALITY ABSTRACT EVALUATED FREEZING PHASE
BPM >=100 19 14 CRM >=50 28 11 SCM [40;60] 8 5 HRM <=20 5 3 R&D [20;40] 8 3 FINANCE >=10 3 0 HUMAN INTERACTION >=50 16 8
Tab. 4 - Quantitative results of extended research
After the two macro phases of research, we have tried to look for new documents through a bibliographical search using the software "Publish or Perish". Publish or Perish is a software program that retrieves and analyzes academic citations. It uses Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search to obtain the raw citations, then analyzes these.
We have used this program to understand the value of the “freezing phase” texts, and to expand our search using the names of the authors of the texts analyzed as a search key. The first goal has been achieved through the opportunity to know the average citations per paper, inputting the titles of academic papers, the program has given us the average number of citations. Knowing the number of citations is important for two reasons: on one hand, it gives us an idea on the value of the texts analyzed, on the other hand it leads us to understand the state of academic research in our field of study.
The expansion of the research was done by putting the names of all the authors of the texts analyzed in the program. Publish or Perish gave us two information, the first is the list of
texts from which we could look for new documents related to our research, the second information is the author’s value of average annual increase that gives us the opportunity to know the author’s trend production.
To underscore the difficulty of finding academic papers on the subject, the analysis about the authors resulted in finding 10 texts, of which only 2 to be added to our list.
Fig. 5 – Example of Publish or Perish research
2.3. DATA ANALYSIS
In this section, we have done a citation analysis of documents in "freezing phase". The analysis has been performed using the software "Nvivo10". Nvivo is a platform for analyzing all forms of unstructured data. Quickly interrogate data using powerful search, query and visualization tools.
The analysis has provided us the tools to answer some of the major questions of our research and we observe what are these results:
• Freeze the database of our research;
• Obtaining accurate information based on the keywords used in the analysis; • Perform a re-reading of the documents, addressed by references;
• Knowing the trend of academic production in the years;
• Getting a starting point for the analysis of the benefits and obstacles; • Obtain qualitative results on the integration between Social tools and ERP.
2.3.1. CITATION AND TEXT ANALYSIS
To conduct the citation analysis we had to put all the .PDF files of academic papers in Nvivo10 and then using the commands "Query". The command returned a number o references, that we had to read to find those valid for our research. The keywords for the analysis were (Tab.5):
KEYWORD N°REFERENCES N°VALID REFERENCES
SOCIAL ERP 1153 521 SOCIAL TOOL 1679 711 SOCIAL PLATFORM 1291 463 SOCIAL BPM 1750 658 SOCIAL CRM 1417 957 SOCIAL SCM 218 42 SOCIAL HRM 81 9 COLLABORATION 309 71 TAGGING 65 21 CHAT 6 4 BENEFIT 213 72 OBSTACLE 119 12 BARRIER 14 4
Tab. 5 – Citation analysis keywords
Making the citation analysis we have done last sorting of academic papers. Documents considered consistent with our research are 38. Based on the capabilities of the module, documents are summarized in the Tab.6 divided in the number of abstracts read, the number of texts evaluated and the final number of texts frozen:
MODULES
ERP BPM CRM SCM HRM R&D FIN. H.I. TOT ABSTRACT >=100 >=100 >=100 [40:60] <=20 [20:40] <=10 [40:60] ~500
EVALUATED 34 19 28 8 5 8 3 16 121
FROZEN 11 12 7 2 1 1 0 4 38
With the citation analysis, we have played a key step in the academic analysis of integration between social tools and ERP systems. Thanks to the re-reading of the references we are in possession of all the information we need to form conclusions and framework on the subject.
With the search keywords “BENEFIT”, “OBSTACLE” and “BARRIER” we set in the next phase of research the benefits and obstacles related to the integration of social tools and ERP systems.
By Nvivo10 we decide to split the documents by a year of preparation, to know when academic research has produced major numerical results. From the vision of the graph (Fig.6) we see how the academic research on the integration of social tools in the management software has given his maximum contribution between the years 2010 and 2013, this makes us reflect on the fact that the research is still in progress and gives us proof of the actuality of our work.
Fig. 6 - Years of papers processing
Another analysis conducted with Nvivo10 is that on concerning the frequency of the words in all the documents of the project, the software transforms the data in a word cloud graph (Fig.7) centred by the most common word in the texts.
Fig. 7 – Words cloud
At first sight the figure may seem trivial, but in our case it has given to us an opportunity to do other citation analysis in addition to those previously carried out, in fact, between the words in the cloud, we have analyzed (Tab.7):
KEY WORD N°REFERENCES N°VALID REFERENCES
INTEGRATION 244 46
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT 1985 544
USER 503 161
CUSTOMER 368 178
Tab. 7 – Second citation analysis keywords
The information collected and analyzed in this chapter have allowed us to extract evidence from academic papers on the subject, which will be further elaborated to provide output that will respond to the research questions.
2.4. EVIDENCE
In this area, we describe the evidence from our academic research.
The first action has been to divide the papers according to their content, subsequently we have described the social features included in ERP systems and the highlights of integration
between social tools and ERP based on the analysis made on the papers have finally been evaluated and listed.
2.4.1. GROUPING RESEARCH PAPERS
The 38 papers (Appendix Tab.24) are categorized according to the treated management module and to the text type: empirical (model or case study) or conceptual.
The following table is a grouping of the documents based on the type and on the main theme to be studied (Tab.8):
RESEARCH TYPE
CONCEPTUAL EMPIRICAL (MODEL) EMPIRICAL (CASE STUDY)
M O D U LE S ERP 1;4;5;9;11 2;3;6;7;8;10 BPM 13;14;16;22;23 12;17;20 15;18;19;21 SCM 1;4;23 2;10 31;32 CRM 1;26;28 2;6;7;24;25;27;29 30 HRM 34 R&D 33 19 FIN. H.I. 35;36;37;38
Tab. 8 - Distribution of papers
As seen in the table, the most studied empirical model concerns the integration between social and CRM. CRM is linked to the activities of the border of a company and is better suited to an integration of internal and external social collaboration, to note though that this abundance of models is not transformed into a number of case studies.
Regarding the type of conceptual documents, the most discussed topic is the BPM, despite the current type of BPM does not marry with the collaboration. In the documents it is often treated because researchers have realized that the architecture of the processes must be changed for efficient and effective integration, in order to bring users to use a type of role-based and collaboration modelling. There aren’t a lot of case studies but, always for the reason of having to revise the architecture of the processes, the module with the greater number is the BPM.
2.4.2. SOCIAL TOOLS AND NEW CAPABILITIES
The introduction of social tools in the company brings additional capabilities, which are related to the world of informal communication and that are exploited through the use of new tools:
• Social collaboration platform-style social network; • Instant messaging (chat);
• Tagging people and document; • Creation of interest groups; • Share internal content; • Share external content;
• Use new symbols for create information: hashtagging # and mentions @; • Use of unstructured information (videos, images, conversations);
• Internal search engine to search for people, documents and information; • Posts creation;
• Tips on users with common points.
The use of the tools listed above leads to the following capabilities applicable to the company:
• Working in groups, directly from the office, with distant people; • Use of informal communication for business activities;
• Ability to track and extrapolate the information flowing within the company, both formal (reports, economic data, budget, delivery notes ...) and informal (chat, post images, video, ...);
• Leaner conversations without having to use long sessions of e-mail; • Working with conversations in real-time;
• Simpler contacts with partners, to be always up to date; • Simplifying the management of warehouses;
• Relationship with the customer before and after sales, facilitated by the ability to communicate outside the company;
2.4.3. HIGHLIGHTS OF INTEGRATION
The frozen documents are subjected to a qualitative analysis on integration. In this way it is possible to give answer about the state of academic research and the highlights about integration between social tools and ERP systems.
The state of academic research is certainly in the making, in fact the amount of production decreases vertiginously if we leave the classical concept of ERP and insert the concept of social integration. Furthermore, if we make a distinction between company social tools and social networks, the amount of documents continues declining, as we have seen from Tab.6 on an amount of about 500 read abstract, focused on the research, we have come to reach a database of 38 documents.
In the following list we can see what are the evidences regarding social integration. The highlights are extrapolated with the carrying out of the analysis made above. See in detail:
• Moving from a process-centric vision to an user-centric vision is the basis of the integration of social tools and ERP: the process centric vision positioning processes and their management in the centre, the fundamental activity are modelling, analysis, optimization and process monitoring. In this situation, the ERP system is central and manages the processes and business operations, while social platform is relegated to the ability to exchange information through instant messaging. The user centric vision focuses on the satisfaction of user needs, to break down barriers and to increase the usability of technologies. According to some papers the way to go, for a total integration between social and ERP, is the second because the world is moving towards collaboration that should be as fast and simple as possible. The researchers believe that by using an user-centric vision, social collaboration is brought to the centre of the architecture, so the user is central with these technologies focused on simplifying usability and he will have the opportunity to interact with the ERP system, which can be connected to the system through an enterprise BUS.
From this concept, we started to create our explanatory framework of the possible integration between social tools, ERP and business context (Fig.8);
Fig. 8 - Hypothesis of user centric architecture modelled by social BPM ProcessCodi (Source: Lee et al. 2011)
• Systems are easier to use thanks to user-centric architecture: this point is related to the previous; according to the researchers, an expected benefit from the exploitation of social features is the ease of use for users. In the papers analyzed, the ease of use related to the social can be exploited if the architecture is user centric. In fact, placing the user at the centre, the solutions will be designed mainly on him and not on the management of processes, this leads to an ease of use that was not there before. The problem is to find an architecture that don’t waste the process management capabilities essential in an ERP, otherwise there is the risk of creating a classic social platform losing the management functionality;
• It is crucial to find a common language that respects the flexibility of social and at the same time the functionality of the ERP: researchers believe that to begin a path that leads to a user-centric vision and architecture, a crucial step is to find a common language between the social flexibility and speed, with stiffness and precision of the language used by ERP. We believe that if researchers or technicians of market companies are able to find a more flexible programming language of ERP systems, which is able to ensure that also the social features can participate in the creation of business documents and information; so, the integration will be facilitated.
If they cannot find a common language there is a risk that the social platform and ERP platform do not communicate;
• It’s important use a platform inspired by the style of the various social networks on the web: analyzing the empirical models found in the papers, we have noticed that the inclusion of a platf
by users. In fact, the icons and controls are more intuitive than the ERP classic tools. Another reason is related to the fact that now people know at least one social network, and then they a
Fig. 9 - Social platform with customer order like social network examples (Source: Andersson 2010)
• The first examples of collaboration are in CRM, SCM and HRM
of the evolution of ERP, we have seen that the first examples of ERPII have developed in those modules that are located in the corporate boundaries. For this reason, we find the first examples of integration between social tools and management
in the same modules in which they have begun to develop the ERP II. Another reason is that often the new solutions are created and driven by the market, then we assume that academic research is waiting for an input from the market on the way forward for the social ERP integration;
• The models of integration and social collaboration platforms within management solutions, proposed in academic papers, do not cover the full integration with the ERP functionality but dealing with BPM, CRM, SCM and HRM:
chapter (2.5.3. Crossing
It’s important use a platform inspired by the style of the various social networks on analyzing the empirical models found in the papers, we have noticed that the inclusion of a platform style "Social networks" brings a benefit in the ease of use by users. In fact, the icons and controls are more intuitive than the ERP classic tools. Another reason is related to the fact that now people know at least one social network, and then they are thought to be more familiar with the instrument. (Fig.9);
Social platform with customer order like social network examples (Source: Andersson 2010)
The first examples of collaboration are in CRM, SCM and HRM: analyzing
of the evolution of ERP, we have seen that the first examples of ERPII have developed in those modules that are located in the corporate boundaries. For this reason, we find the first examples of integration between social tools and management
in the same modules in which they have begun to develop the ERP II. Another reason is that often the new solutions are created and driven by the market, then we assume that academic research is waiting for an input from the market on the way
rd for the social ERP integration;
The models of integration and social collaboration platforms within management solutions, proposed in academic papers, do not cover the full integration with the ERP functionality but dealing with BPM, CRM, SCM and HRM:
Crossing-Structuring graph) we should not try to cover all business It’s important use a platform inspired by the style of the various social networks on analyzing the empirical models found in the papers, we have noticed that orm style "Social networks" brings a benefit in the ease of use by users. In fact, the icons and controls are more intuitive than the ERP classic tools. Another reason is related to the fact that now people know at least one social re thought to be more familiar with the instrument. (Fig.9);
Social platform with customer order like social network examples (Source: Andersson 2010)
: analyzing the history of the evolution of ERP, we have seen that the first examples of ERPII have developed in those modules that are located in the corporate boundaries. For this reason, we find the first examples of integration between social tools and management software in the same modules in which they have begun to develop the ERP II. Another reason is that often the new solutions are created and driven by the market, then we assume that academic research is waiting for an input from the market on the way
The models of integration and social collaboration platforms within management solutions, proposed in academic papers, do not cover the full integration with the ERP functionality but dealing with BPM, CRM, SCM and HRM: as we will see in Structuring graph) we should not try to cover all business
processes with social tools integrated with ERP. The motivation that we tried to give proof of what is claimed in some papers passing through the structure and crossing of the activities and processes. In our opinion, the social processes that benefit of the ERP integration are the ones that are positioned in the "collaboration area" (Fig.14): for example, human resources and logistics. Analyzing the middle area of our chart we find the motivation to push towards integration because in the collaboration area we can manage both structured and cross processes through the use of social platform that allows to interact with the different business areas.
For this reason, the first models are focused towards integration are BPM, CRM, SCM, HRM;
• The classic BPM does not marry with the cooperation between individuals into the company, but BPM is fundamental for the future integration: some papers report that there is no applicability of social features within BPM tools. Going forward with the analysis, we realized that the use of social tools integrated with BPM software have a critical role in the company and for future integration between social tools and ERP systems. The motivation is related to the change of architecture that many researchers hope. In fact, we use BPR and BPM tools (Fig.8) to design architecture and ties between members and business areas. Using new social features (Fig.10) and modelling (Tab.9) the users are facilitated to create social architecture that is expected to be crucial for a full integration between social tools and ERP;
REQUIREMENT BPMN NOTATION COMMENT
Task Type: Social broadcast Data flow to a community pool
Task Type: Social posting Data flow to a single user in a community pool
Task Type: Invitation to activity
Dynamic enrolment to a task in the process case
Task Type: Commenting Submission of comments
about the activity
Task Type: Voting Voting (y/n) on an activity,
either within a social network platform or directly in the BPM system
Task Type: Login Use a social profile to login
into a system
Task Type: Invitation to join a network
Invitation between community members to join a specific network (e.g., friend network, group, and so on)
Task Type: Search for actor’s information
Lookup query to the community to search for actor with specific profile attributes
Community generated events
(Generic) events raised by the community
Event: New user engaged in the social community
An event is raised when a user dynamically enrols to the process case
Event: New social relationship link
An event is raised when a user establishes a social relationship with another user
Event: Invitation acceptance/ rejection
An event is raised when a user accepts/rejects an invitation
Tab. 9 - Social BPMN notation (Source: Fraternali et al. 2011)
• The company becomes more interactive with social tools for that which concerns internal and external relationships, it becomes important to define what kind of people should have access to information and how they can get it: with the inclusion of social features, the company tends to climb over the walls between different business areas and the outside. In this way the company will be more interactive and faster in responding to the market needs. On the other hand it must to be very careful with who exchanges business information and in which way. Currently the exchange of information and documents, occurs primarily through sharing in groups or pages. When documents are posted, the user can provide restrictions and decide which people can read or download the document.
• Creation of a single central repository for managing internal and external information more quickly: the use of chat features, comments, sharing, tagging and hashtagging leads to an exponential increase of unstructured information. Thanks to the creation of a central repository, the researchers believe they can keep track of all the information and find them easily through internal search engines. The next step will be to transform unstructured information into structured data usable by ERP functionality in addition to those created by the management system, so as to have more accurate and detailed information from inside and outside the company. We believe that this feature is not simply a searchable database, but it offers the opportunity to learn and manage various types of business information, which increases the speed of response to market and creating business opportunities. • Importance of staff from Net-generation for the integration of social system in the
the term "social". Those who have seen the birth of this phenomenon are starting to join the company, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge that is absent in the senior. Precisely for this reason a key factor for the development and the diffusion of social theory in the ERP is to leverage the skills and knowledge of the Net-generation that can bring a fruitful and positive climate for these technologies and counter the resistance to internal change of the more conservative members;
• There is a risk of data security and lack of respect for privacy: the use of chat, groups, posts, tagging leads to a management of information easier compared an exchange of emails between two people and this may increase the risk of problems of data security and users’ privacy. The problem is due to the fear of external attacks or technical malfunctions that may lead an invasion of users’ privacy and the loss of sensitive data. In the analyzed papers, the researchers believe that the current systems of firewalls are able to ensure the privacy and security of data within enterprise social platforms and it is always a good idea to change passwords every month and to rely on commercial solutions and avoid DIY solutions;
• Among the seven future technologies for IT researchers talk about social media and social collaboration, then academic researchers see a future for this implementation;
2.5. OUTPUT
This sector is dedicated to the output of academic research. The previous steps are useful to analyze the state of the academic literature in relation to the concept of integration of social tools and ERP, and to give us the information needed to create the output.
Specifically, we have developed: a study of the expected benefits and obstacles, a graphic on the concept of social coverage of business processes and at last an explanatory framework of the integration between social, management systems and corporate context.
Through this processing, we are able to answer the questions we set ourselves at the beginning, namely:
• What are the expected benefits from the integration of social tools and business management systems?
• What are the obstacles that may oppose to integration?
As we mentioned this phase is the result of all previous stages, before describing the production of the output, we are going to provide a framework summary of our research (Fig.11).
Fig. 11 – Research framework
The figure (Fig.11) shows:
• H1: reading the abstracts and extraction of all documents centred with our research; • H2: document analysis performed by Publish or Perish and Nvivo10 to obtain
information and documents definitively consistent with our research;
• H3: citation analysis by Nvivo10 and read back of documents to find any obstacles in the integration of social tools and ERP;
• H4: analysis and re-reading of documents to find the most important new features due to the introduction of social in the management software;
• H5: the inclusion of new capabilities can create obstacles;
• H6: the presence of obstacles to integration, puts the company in front of new challenges;
• H7: through citation analysis and the inclusion of new social capabilities we found the expected benefits due to integration.
2.5.1. BENEFITS
The new capabilities can bring benefits in the field of activities managed by the ERP.
Thanks to citation analysis we have analyzed in detail the academic references to the expected benefits in the company.
