Enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management value
| Date | 11 September 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-08-2016-0340 |
| Published date | 11 September 2017 |
| Pages | 1612-1631 |
| Author | Pedro Ruivo,Tiago Oliveira,André Mestre |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Enterprise resource planning and
customer relationship
management value
Pedro Ruivo, Tiago Oliveira and André Mestre
NOVA IMS, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a theoretical model to measure the impact of
enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems and moderating
relationships of system and process integration on business value.
Design/methodology/approach –ERP and CRM systems are analysed with the resource-based view
theory and measured by their impact on business value, having in consideration the moderation of system
and process integration. The model was tested and analysed with data collected by Microsoft, from firms that
have adopted both ERP and CRM systems in their organisation.
Findings –ERP system is found to be an important asset to business value, but CRM systems’impact on
business value is found to be not significant. System integration as moderator of ERP or CRM system is found
to be not significant but has a positive and significant impact on business value. For process integration,
the study finds that it is significant only when moderating the CRM system variable.
Research limitations/implications –The model shows that the moderating effects of system and process
integration are important variables for understanding the joint business value of ERP and CRM.
Practical implications –Adopting an ERP system and ensuring system integration provides a direct
impact on business value. In order for a CRM system to have a positive impact on business value, process
integration with ERP system must be ensured.
Originality/value –This study provides new knowledge on how ERP and CRM systems used together may
positively influence value from IT investments, and how systems integration and process integration provide
business value.
Keywords CRM, ERP, Value, Process integration, System integration
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been applied by many firms of varying
size around the world as a key part of their organisational architecture. ERP systems
support day-to-day business operations and decision-making processes (Gattiker and
Goodhue, 2005; May et al., 2013), and are expected to provide seamless integration of
processes across functional areas (Mabert et al., 2003). However, these IT resources
streamline and integrate internal business processes to improve efficiency only within a
firm’s boundaries (Davenport, 1998).
Customer relationship management (CRM)systems have exploded on the enterprisespace
in recent years, and some studies claim that they are the ultimate solution to the information
exchange problem among firms (Gartner, 2013; Extraprise, 2008; Chang et al., 2014).
CRM extends the original value proposition of ERP, allowing firms to build interactive
relationships with their customers and bring together their previously separated information
at very low cost (Payne and Frow, 2006; Iriana and Buttle, 2006).
Research statesthat CRM systems encompass the externalpart of the extended enterprise,
and ERP encompassesthe internal part (Gartner, 2013; Extraprise, 2008; Alshawi et al., 2011).
That is, while CRM applications extract customer information from customer facing
processes, ERP applications leverage the information to configure product offerings,
scheduling, and fulfilment processes(Hitt et al., 2002). As more firms realisethat they need to
know their customers very profoundly in order to compete or survive, integrating CRM with
ERP becomes a critical topic (Payne and Frow, 2005; Ryals, 2005). Integrated CRM and ERP
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 117 No. 8, 2017
pp. 1612-1631
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-08-2016-0340
Received 23 August 2016
Revised 13 December 2016
Accepted 21 January 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
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IMDS
117,8
systems automatically communicate customer and process-related information to each other
(Rai et al., 2006), increase interdepartmental connectedness, facilitate the dissemination of
market intelligence amongst multiple departments and locations, and improve the entire
organisation’s responsiveness to consumer demands (Liu et al.,2013).
Moreover, some researchers suggest that IT value is better captured when taking into
consideration moderator relationships on the link between IT resources and business value
(Liu et al., 2013; Mishra and Agarwal, 2010). Although few, some IS researchers have
identified ERP and CRM integration as one of the most important fields for future IT value
research (King and Burgess, 2008; Alshawi et al., 2011; Davenport, 1998; Kim et al., 2015;
Willis and Willis-Brown, 2002; Liu et al., 2013; Melville et al., 2004) and claim that system
integration is a key factor that shapes how IT is applied to digitise business processes and
generate value. Some researchers point out that business process integration plays an
important role for return on investment on improvements in both ERP (Roh and Hong, 2015;
Narayanan et al., 2011; Samaranayake, 2009) and CRM (Osarenkhoe and Bennani, 2007;
Light, 2003; Nguyen and Mutum, 2012; Liu et al., 2013).
Motivated by these issues, this study develops and tests a theoretical model grounded in
a well-established IS theory, resource-based view (RBV ). We investigate the impact of the
joint ERP and CRM systems value by taking into consideration the moderating
relationships of system and process integration. In doing so, we contribute to the IT value
literature by examining the complementarity value of the integration of these two resources.
Our work focusses on answering the following research questions:
RQ1. Are ERP and CRM systems drivers of business value?
RQ2. Are systems and processes integration drivers of business value?
RQ3. Do systems and processes integration work as moderators of ERP and CRM
systems in business value creation?
The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. In Section 2, we provide a literature
review on ERP and CRM business value, followed by an overview of RBV theory of the firm
that underpins our research model. In Section 3, we present the proposed research model
and hypotheses. In Section 4, we explain the research methodology and operationalise the
variables. Section 5 has the results and analysis. In Section 6, we discuss the results, present
the managerial implications, contributions, limitations, and directions for future work. In the
last section we present the concluding remarks.
2. Literature review
The purpose of this section is to position our literature review with regard to existing
knowledge about the ERP and CRM value. More precisely, we first review the three streams
of published studies that build our knowledge: the ERP business value, the CRM business
value, and the role of systems and process integration on business value. Then we set the
RBV theory of the firm as the theoretical framework for linking the ERP and CRM to
business value.
2.1 The ERP business value
In reviewing ERP studies, we were able to find seven literature review publications: Esteves and
Pastor (2001) analysed 189 papers, Shehab et al. (2004) analysed 76, Botta-Genoulaz et al. (2005)
analysed 80, Cumbie et al. (2005) analysed 49, Esteves and Bohórquez (2007) analysed
640, Schlichter and Kraemmergaard (2010) analysed 885, and Huang and Yasuda (2016)
analysed 86 papers. These studies reveal the rich variety and practice of ERP systems in
different firms. Still, the authors claim that ERP research is lacking studies addressing the ERP
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ERP and CRM
value
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