Int. J. Operational Research, Vol. 39, No.

2, 2020 145

Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of

ERP system using TOPSIS method

Santosh Kumar Yadav* and Dennis Joseph

Department of Operations and IT,
ICFAI Business School (IBS),
The ICFAI Foundation for
Higher Education (IFHE) University,
Hyderabad, Telengana – 501203, India
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
*Corresponding author

Abstract: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications are complex and

difficult to implement. Even after implementation many ERP projects are not
used or adopted by employees. Organisations are struggling to convince and
motivate employees to adapt smoothly to them. Several personal, managerial
and organisational issues contribute to successful adoption. This research paper
attempts to identify potential issues that lead to failures in the adoption of ERP
systems in enterprises. Earlier studies have identified different contributing
issues to the failure of ERP systems. A questionnaire was developed around
these significant influencing issues reported in literature and industry people
mostly senior managers having good experience with ERP systems were asked
to rate the importance of these factors. TOPSIS method was applied to rank the
factors based on their importance in the failure of ERP systems. From the
results, it is found that poor top management support and poor quality of testing
were the two most important critical failure factors for ERP adoption. While
implementing ERP systems, an organisation has to give importance to these
failure factors based on this rank to ensure ERP implementation success.

Keywords: enterprise systems; enterprise resource planning; ERP; ERP failure

factors; ERP adoption; TOPSIS.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Yadav, S.K. and Joseph, D.
(2020) ‘Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP system using
TOPSIS method’, Int. J. Operational Research, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp.145–159.

Biographical notes: Santosh Kumar Yadav is working as a faculty in the

Department of Operations and as an IT in the Faculty of Management (IBS
Hyderabad), IFHE University, India. He has worked for more than three years
as a Lecturer at Patel Group of Institutions, Indore and more than two years as
an Academic Associate (OM and QT area) at the IIM Indore. He is a Science
graduate and Postgraduate in Management. He has participated and presented
his research in national and international conferences in India and abroad. He
has also participated in various training programmes at IIMB, IIMK, IIMI,
TISS, IITD, IITKGP, etc. He is a life member of Society of Operations
Management (SOM).

Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

146 S.K. Yadav and D. Joseph

Dennis Joseph is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of

Operations and as an IT in the Faculty of Management (IBS Hyderabad), IFHE
University, India. He has taught subjects like operations management, supply
chain management, data warehousing and mining, DBMS, e-business and other
IT related courses. He has publications in both national and international
journals and presented papers in both national and international conferences.

1 Introduction

With enterprise applications business processes are integrated and this integration may
span the boundaries of different departments and maybe even across the whole business.
Integration helps businesses to properly align their business processes with the related
data. This gives businesses a lot of flexibility to make the right decisions which may lead
the organisation to run smoothly and productively. ERP application is one of such
enterprise applications and it helps to integrate various functional systems into an
enterprise wide information system. ERP implementation is costly and very complex, so
organisations have to plan well before implementing such enterprise systems. Scalability
is also an important factor that organisations have to consider with an ERP system.
Research studies in the past have viewed the evolution of ERP systems from a
manufacturing perspective. Scheduling production, ordering materials, and shipping
products within an assigned plant area were done with the help of automated reorder
point (ROP) in the late 1950s. Then came material requirements planning (MRP) during
the mid-1960s, which replaced the old ROP systems. Computerised material requirement
planning systems were the first readymade business application system available in the
market. Maintaining master data and creating bill of materials (BOM) were made
possible with the help of MRP systems across all products and parts in one or more
plants. An MRP system consisted of BOM processors, algorithms for forecasting and
computerised production reporting tools (Hwa Chung and Snyder, 2000; Klaus et al.,
2000; Rondeau and Litteral, 2001).
Manufacturing resources planning (MRP II) systems began to replace MRP systems
by the mid-1970s. These systems calculated the overall production capabilities by
integrating materials and production capacity requirements. MRP II systems enabled the
efficient scheduling, monitoring and execution of production plans due to its advanced
reporting capabilities. MRP and MRP II systems increased the firm’s operational
efficiency by focusing primarily on automating transactions (Hwa and Snyder, 2000;
Klaus et al., 2000; Rondeau and Litteral, 2001). MRP systems were run on mainframe
systems and had disadvantages like limited user system interactions and low functional
integration. The MRP II systems on the other hand, mainly were run on multi-user
networks and on many IT platforms. Rapid advances in technology led to the creation of
MRP II systems which were integrated with other systems such as computer integrated
manufacturing (CIM), just-in-time (JIT), electronic data interchange (EDI), and
manufacturing execution systems by the late 1980s (Hsieh and Kleiner, 1992; Sillince
and Sykes, 1993; Rondeau and Litteral, 2001). Eventually by the early 1990s MRP II
systems were replaced by ERP systems. ERP systems integrated information flows across
the entire firm and thus extended MRP II system functionalities. Functions such as
human resources, sales and distribution and every other functional department could now
 Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP system 147

be integrated into the enterprise system, which was not possible with MRP II systems.
Common information architecture was used with ERP systems which allowed for the
seamless integration of all functional units. This common architecture could be coupled
or de-coupled and integrated with legacy application systems. Business applications like
electronic-commerce (E-Commerce), supply chain management (SCM), and customer
relationship management (CRM) owe its emergence to ERP systems as their
functionalities have helped in inter-firm integration (Sadagopan, 1999; Hwa and Snyder,
2000; Yen et al., 2002).
ERP systems collect data through a single comprehensive database and make it
available to modular applications that support all of a firm’s value chain activities across
functions, business units, and geographical areas. These systems have emerged as the de
facto operating standards for firms and represent generic but multi-level configurable and
customisable solutions that incorporate best practices which basically reflect a series of
assumptions about how firms operate in general (Davenport, 1998a; Klaus et al., 2000;
Markus et al., 2000; Koch, 2001). Researchers have identified a number of key features
that characterise ERP systems (Hwa and Snyder, 2000; Siriginidi, 2000; Al-Mashari
et al., 2003). ERP systems share the same data definition across all modules through the
use of a data dictionary. They facilitate the maintenance of a single set of data across all
business processes and hence provide common data access to all users. The use of client-
server technology, middleware, and the Internet enables ERP systems to be configured
according to the dynamic business needs of firms. Open system network architecture
allows any module of the ERP system to be linked or de-linked from the system without
affecting other modules. ERP systems also contain repositories, which capture all
semantics in business processes, business objects, and firm structures.
ERP has been defined by researchers and practitioners in different ways. The Gartner
Group coined the term ERP in the early 1990s to describe a collection of applications that
can be used to manage all of a firm’s business activities. Minahan (1998) defines ERP as
a complex software system that ties together and automates the basic processes of a
business. Al-Mashari and Zairi (2000) indicate that ERP represents an optimal enterprise-
wide technology infrastructure. Researchers also refer to ERP systems as enterprise
resource management (ERM) systems, enterprise systems (ES), and business systems
respectively (Slater, 1999; Davenport, 1998a; Davenport and Short, 2000). ERP systems
are further described as applications that integrate functional areas and allow functions to
share a common database and business analysis tools (Chen, 2001; Mabert et al., 2001).
In recent literature, the definition of ERP has undergone changes as ERP systems were
extended to include inter-firm activities through integration of front-office and back-
office business applications such as SCM and CRM. In the early 2000s, the Gartner
Group coined the term enterprise resource planning II (ERP II) to refer to business
strategies and a set of industry domain-specific applications that build customer and
shareholder value by enabling and optimising enterprise and inter-enterprise collaborative
operational and financial processes. Gould (2002) stated that the cross-enterprise
integration enhancements such as process extensions, verticalisation of functionalities,
and IT architecture define ERP II. Weston (2003) indicates that the concept of ERP II
extends beyond ERP to include technology planning and execution issues that support
business processes and change management; and hardware, software, and technical
issues. Researchers also refer to ERP II systems as ES’s (Kawalek and Wood-Harper,
2002) and as electronic- ERP (e-ERP) systems (Ash and Burn, 2003).
148 S.K. Yadav and D. Joseph

Apart from implementation, the adoption by the personnel to the new integrated
system is also becoming a big challenge to be handled. Adoption of ERP system in an
organisation means that all the concerned end-users of the system are fully aware of the
business processes and operations involved. They should also know the inputs needed
and outputs expected. Several authors raise different issues from different perspectives.
Researchers like Holland and Light (1999) and Al-Mashari et al. (2003) examined the
issues of planning and evaluation. Dezdar and Sulaiman (2009) reported that there is a
positive relationship between ERP implementation projects and employee culture. Yu
(2005) talked about three main stages of ERP implementation such as
pre-implementation, implementation and post implementation.
Yazdi and Haddadi (2017) prioritised critical success factors of knowledge
management in insurance companies. They used the Rembrandt method which is an
optimised form of AHP. They listed the vital issues for knowledge management in
organisations along with the most important factors of each issue and prioritised them
using AHP method. They found that administrative, organisation, IT infrastructure and
human resources were the most important. Bharathi and Mandal (2015) prioritised and
ranked critical factors for sustain cloud ERP adoption in small and medium enterprise.
Their exploratory study was conducted on consultants and implementing partners of ERP
in SMEs. A list of most critical 17 factors was categorised based on the cost, security,
performance, functionality and organisational factors of ERP. They found that cost
related factors had the highest ranking. Saravanan and Joseph (2016) studied the
implementation and cultural issues related to the adoption of ERP systems. They
collected feedback from industry people with relevant knowledge of ERP systems. An
initiative exploratory factor analysis followed by a confirmatory factor analysis was done
on the data to derived prominent factors that influence the adoption of ERP systems. It
was found that implementation and cultural issues play an important role in successful
adoption of ERP systems.
Many studies in the past have dealt with identifying critical success and failure
factors influencing ERP adoption, but research on prioritising these factors are lacking.
This study intends to fill that gap by prioritising and ranking the critical failure factors
already established by researchers so that managers know the importance of each of these
factors. This will help the managers to give more importance and priority so the most
significant factors. The next section deals with the review of extant literature on critical
failure factors of ERP implementation which is followed by research methodology,
results and discussion and conclusion.

2 Literature review

Several authors have studied ERP adoption issues from different perspectives.
Chakravorty et al. (2016) have done a case analysis for ERP implementation failures.
They used Esculation of commitment as a framework for packaging manufacturing
industry. Bintoro et al. (2015) have done ERP implementation review for Actor’s
interaction. Findings showed that mismanaged interaction among the key actors causes
ERP failure in ERP implementations. Aloini et al. (2007) studied risk management of
ERP implementation classified the failure of ERP project. Yeo (2002) defined four types
of information system (IS) failure such as correspondence failure, process failure,
interaction failure and expectation failure. Wong et al. (2005) identified 14 critical failure
 Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP system 149

factors in ERP implementation. Ravasan and Mansouri (2014) studied critical failure
factor for projects. Authors proposed fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs) tool for failure
factors in ERP implementation project. Results showed that proposed tool help to
improve ERP implementation project. Chen et al. (2009) mentioned failure rate of ERP
projects are high. According to Liao et al. (2007) failure is the integral part of ERP
projects and, even under good conditions success cannot be assured. Failure has two
types, first project itself and second is outcomes and identified critical failure factors in
Iranian industries (Amid et al., 2012). Ibrahim et al. (2013) investigated critical failure
factors for information technology (IT) project. They reviewed twelve articles to list the
critical failure factors of IT projects. Jayawickrama and Yapa (2013) examined the
factors affecting ERP implementation based on clients and consultants. They used the
survey approach to get information. Zare Ravasan and Mansouri (2016) developed a
dynamic ERP critical failure modelling with fuzzy cognitive maps throughout a project
life cycle phase. Results showed that if failure factors are ignored then it impacts the
outcome of the project. Complex number of success and failure factors affects the
implementation of ERP systems (Rouhani and Ravasan, 2013). Kumar and Gupta (2011)
introduced knowledge management in organisation to reduce the failure of ERP
implementation.
Inadequate training has been one of the major reasons for the failure of many ERP
systems failure (Gupta, 2000). Many ERP projects fail because adequate training is not
provided (Kelly et al., 1999). There should be an appropriate plan for end-user training
and education. ERP training helps employees understand the various business processes
behind the ERP applications (Gupta, 2000). ERP training should cover all areas of the
system, be continuous and should be based on knowledge transfer principles wherever
consultants are involved (Davenport, 1998b). Organisational process fit of ERP is the
extent to which the implemented ERP system can satisfy the client’s process needs. Swan
et al. (1999) indicated that organisational misfits of ERP exist due to the conflicting
interests of user organisations and ERP vendors. The team responsible for ERP
implementation will be challenged to either match the functionality of the ERP system to
the way that the enterprise currently does business or find ways to change current
processes and procedures (Laughlin, 1999).
Ilhan and Tatlidil (2016) applied multi-criteria decision making analysis to the
Istanbul Stock Market. This method considers many criteria for effective decision
making. AHP, ELECTRE and TOPSIS are the most widely used techniques employing
this method. The technique was used to find the most effective three stocks from the
Istanbul Stock Exchange and was compared with the year and returns. Maleki et al.
(2014) used a fuzzy linear programming model for project selection. Real world
uncertainties were considered using fuzzy concepts. They incorporated tax and
depreciation into their proposed model and investment projects were considered as the
investments. Mavi et al. (2015) ranked bank branches using data envelopment analysis
(DEA) and multivariate regression models. Two multivariate regression models were
proposed with exact data and weighted data for fitting the regression equation. Group
analytic hierarchy process was used to apply the weight. It was found that weighted
multivariate regression model has more advantages over conventional methodologies.
Mishra et al. (2015) applied fuzzy MULTIMOORA method for supplier selection in agile
supply chains. They developed a framework and a decision model for supplier selection
using a fuzzy logic in agile supply chain. Finally, the paper analysed the empirical data to
exhibit application feasibility of the proposed method.
150 S.K. Yadav and D. Joseph

Rahmani and Keshavarz (2015) prioritised technological capabilities with fuzzy AHP
to maximise financial performance. The model was tested first with experts in four coil
companies in Iran who make up 90% of Iranian Coil market share. They considered
technology management, process technology and product technology as the different
technological capability factors, which were prioritised according to their competitive
advantage levels and competitive priorities using fuzzy AHP. Profit, return on
investment, sales growth rate, liquidity, working capital and debt to equity ratio were
used to measure competitive advantage levels. Cost, price, quantity, flexibility and time
were used to measure competitive priorities. It was seen by their findings that process
technology is more important than product technology and technology management.
Karande and Chakraborty (2012) studied ERP system selection using fuzzy
multi-objective optimisation by ratio analysis (MOORA) because wrong ERP selection
affect the organisations performance. Visalakshmi et al. (2015) used fuzzy DEMATEL
TOPSIS to evaluate the financial performance of GREENEX industries. They proposed a
framework structured on accounting based financial performance using sixteen financial
ratios to rank fourteen different companies. Weights were assigned to criteria and sub-
criteria using DEMATEL methodology, and ranking was done using TOPSIS method.
Such analysis helps the companies to revise their financial information and they can
analyse the financial position of the best firms. Many studies have been conducted by
different authors, and many issues which influence the adoption of ERP systems has been
brought to light. The objective of this study is to find out whether there are any
underlying constructs behind these issues. Feedback from experienced industry people
would be used to extract reliable constructs. A confirmatory factor analysis will be used
to establish model fit and also to check construct validity. Since ERP implementation is a
costly and risky affair, understanding these constructs which can help in successful
adoption would be of great use to practitioners.
From the literature review the most important fourteen failure factors of ERP
implementation were identified to prioritise them. So the critical failure factors in the
adoption of ERP systems which have been identified in Table 1.
Table 1 List of critical failure factors

S. no. Critical failure factors

1 ERP system misfit
2 High turnover rate of project team members
3 Over reliance on heavy customisation
4 Poor consultant effectiveness
5 Poor IT infrastructure
6 Poor Knowledge transfer
7 Poor project management effectiveness
8 Poor quality of BPR
9 Poor quality of testing
10 Poor top management support
11 Too tight project schedule
12 Unclear concept with users
13 Unrealistic expectations
14 User resistance to change
 Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP system 151

3 Methodology

The main purpose of this research was to find out the most important parameters for the
adoption of ERP systems with the help of TOPSIS method. The questionnaire was
developed to measure the factors by adopting the work of Wong et al. (2005). Primary
data were collected through a structured questionnaire using a five point Likert scale. The
respondents provided responses from 1 to 5, where 1 stands for not important, 2 less
important, 3 average, 4 important and 5 very important. The total sample size was 79,
taken from the senior level managers.

Figure 1 The research framework

List of critical failure factors

Calculated the factors weight value

Final ranking of the critical failure factors

3.1 The technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution

(TOPSIS) method
TOPSIS is one of the most useful techniques to provide priorities of the available
alternatives and was developed by Hwang and Yoon (1981). According to this technique,
a positive ideal solution maximises the benefit criteria and minimises the cost criteria,
whereas a negative ideal solution maximises the cost criteria and minimises the benefit
criteria. According to Ball and Korukoglu (2009) TOPSIS is the most powerful multi-
criteria decision making technique, which is very simple and easy to implement. The
TOPSIS method has seven steps which are given below (Assari et al., 2012; Yadav et al.,
2016).
Step 1 Construct the decision matrix (A)
 a11 a12  a1n 
a a22  a2 n 
A = ( aij )m×n =
21
     
 
 am1 am 2  amn 

Step 2 Calculate the normalised decision matrix. The normalised value Pij is calculated
as follows:
m
Pij = Aij A i =1
2
ij

i = 1, 2, …, m and j = 1, 2, …, n.
152 S.K. Yadav and D. Joseph

Step 3 Calculate the weighted normalised decision matrix. The weighted normalised
value vij is calculated as follows:
vij = Pij × w j

i =1, 2,..., m and j = 1, 2, ..., n.

n
where wj is the weight of the jth criterion or attribute and w
j =1
j =1

Step 4 Determine the positive ideal (A*) and negative ideal (A–) solutions.

A* = {( max vi
ij )(
j ∈ Cb , min vij j ∈ Cc
i )} = {v *
j j =, 2,  m }
A− = {( min v ij )(
j ∈ Cb , max vij j ∈ Cc )} = {v −
j j =, 2,  m }
i i

Step 5 Calculate the separation measures of each alternative from the positive ideal
solution and the negative ideal solution, respectively, are as follows:
m

 (v − v*j ) , j = 1, 2,  , m
2
Si* = ij
j =1

 (v − v −j ) , j = 1, 2,  , m
2
Si− = ij
j =1

Step 6 Calculate the relative closeness to the ideal solution. The relative closeness of
the alternative Ai with respect to A* is defined as follows:
Si−
RCi* = , i = 1, 2,  , m
Si* + Si−
Step 7 Rank the preference order.

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Weight calculation

The weight value calculation approach adopted from Assari et al. (2012) and calculated
from the Table 3, are arranged in Table 2.
Now TOPSIS method is applied to this calculated weight value to get the critical
failure factors ranking. Table 3 shows the original data matrix collected from the
respondents.
 Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP system 153

Table 2 Weight value (Wj)

W1,1 0.03056
W2,2 0.22325
W3,3 0.31586
W4,4 0.32055
W5,5 0.10978
SUM 1
Source: Compiled by author
Table 3 Respondent responses from the questionnaire

No. of Less Very

Not important Average Important
question important important
1 0 3 13 57 6
2 0 4 54 21 0
3 0 22 48 9 0
4 0 36 28 14 1
5 4 41 21 13 0
6 9 33 34 2 1
7 1 39 26 13 0
8 6 27 41 5 0
9 0 18 43 18 0
10 0 0 11 61 7
11 0 1 39 25 14
12 0 0 20 48 11
13 0 1 14 35 29
14 0 0 10 47 22
Source: Compiled by author
For TOPSIS method we need to normalise the original data matrix by using the formula
in the second step of the TOPSIS method as Table 4 shows.
Then, the weighted normalised matrix is calculated by multiplying each normalised
matrix value with their weight value. The calculated weight value is given in the Table 2.
Table 5 represents the weighted normalised decision matrix from the third step of
TOPSIS method.
After getting the weighted normalised decision matrix, we find out the positive ideal
(A*) and negative ideal (A–) solutions which is given in Table 6.
After getting the value of separation measure, we calculated relative closeness to the
ideal solution using step 6 in TOPSIS method. After that, we have given the rank for each
critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP systems. The rank of the each of the
critical failure factors are shown in Table 7.
154 S.K. Yadav and D. Joseph

Table 4 Normalised decision matrix from the questionnaire

No. of Less Very

Not important Average Important
question important important
1 0 0.106429 1.412558 26.7591 0.865775
2 0 0.189207 24.37289 3.632122 0
3 0 5.723504 19.25759 0.667124 0
4 0 15.32575 6.55293 1.614276 0.024049
5 1.382189 19.87853 3.686023 1.391901 0
6 6.997334 12.87788 9.662229 0.032944 0.024049
7 0.086387 17.98647 5.650231 1.391901 0
8 3.109926 8.620732 14.05035 0.205903 0
9 0 3.831436 15.45455 2.668498 0
10 0 0 1.011358 30.64654 1.178416
11 0 0.011825 12.71302 5.147565 4.713663
12 0 0 3.343332 18.97598 2.909966
13 0 0.011825 1.638233 10.08923 20.22546
14 0 0 0.835833 18.19355 11.63986
Source: Compiled by author
Table 5 Weighted normalised decision matrix

No. of Less Very

Not important Average Important
question important important
1 0 0.023761 0.446171 8.577574 0.095042
2 0 0.042241 7.698432 1.164269 0
3 0 1.277792 6.082712 0.213845 0
4 0 3.421525 2.069812 0.517453 0.00264
5 0.042241 4.437951 1.164269 0.446171 0
6 0.213845 2.875032 3.051916 0.01056 0.00264
7 0.00264 4.01554 1.784684 0.446171 0
8 0.095042 1.924608 4.437951 0.066002 0
9 0 0.855381 4.881482 0.855381 0
10 0 0 0.319448 9.823685 0.129363
11 0 0.00264 4.01554 1.650041
12 0 0 1.056026 6.082712 0.319448
13 0 0.00264 0.517453 3.234081 2.220295
14 0 0 0.264007 5.831905 1.277792
Source: Compiled by author
 Prioritising critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP system 155

Table 6 Max and min value

Max 0.213845 4.437951 7.698432 9.823685 2.220295

Min 0 0 0.264007 0.01056 0
Source: Compiled by author
Table 7 Final ranking of the critical failure factors

No. of Relative closeness

Critical failure factors Rank
question ( RCi* )
1 ERP system misfit 0.49215164 3
2 High turnover rate of project team members 0.43022024 4
3 Over reliance on heavy customisation 0.36246638 7
4 Poor consultant effectiveness 0.25925865 14
5 Poor IT infrastructure 0.28093641 10
6 Poor Knowledge transfer 0.26381432 13
7 Poor project management effectiveness 0.27608594 11
8 Poor quality of BPR 0.29817708 8
9 Poor quality of testing 0.92403478 1
10 Poor top management support 0.52544702 2
11 Too tight project schedule 0.28546371 9
12 Unclear concept with users 0.40453234 5
13 Unrealistic expectations 0.26805895 12
14 User resistance to change 0.38344903 6
Source: Compiled by author
Table 7 shows the final ranking of the 14 critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP
systems based on 79 respondents from Hyderabad. Each factor got a rank on the basis of
weight value. As par the rank, poor quality of testing, poor top management support, ERP
system misfit, high turnover rate of project team members and unclear concept with users
were found to be the most important factors which may cause the failure of adoption of
ERP systems. User resistance to change, over reliance on heavy customisation, Poor
quality of BPR, Too tight project schedule and Poor IT infrastructure were found to be
moderately important regarding the failure of ERP systems. It was seen that the factors:
Poor project management effectiveness, Unrealistic expectations, Poor Knowledge
transfer and Poor consultant effectiveness were the least important.

5 Conclusions

In this study, Technique for order preference by positive ideal solution method was used
to find out the most important critical failure factors for the adoption of ERP systems.
Weight value was calculated based on the actual responses. The study has shown that the
poor top management support and poor quality of testing are the two most important
critical failure factors for ERP adoption system. To avoid ERP failures which may prove
costly, organisations have to ensure that proper and high quality testing is done with ERP
156 S.K. Yadav and D. Joseph

implementations. The ERP project should be also guided and supported strongly by the
top management in the organisation. The implemented ERP software should have a good
technology fit with the needs of the organisation and users of the ERP system should be
given proper instructions and training to enable them to make use of the ERP system.
Though many studies have been conducted to identify critical success and failure
factors of ERP implementation, studies done to prioritise those factors are not common.
So this study extends current literature by ranking the critical failure factors of ERP
implementation and giving managers a priority list to work on. In this study, we have
considered only fourteen critical failure factors related to ERP adoption system. Further,
researchers can use more critical failure factors in different areas. This study was
conducted in Hyderabad, India. Future research may extend this to other contexts and
environments. Researchers may also try to rank ERP critical success factors using this
TOPSIS method under a fuzzy environment.

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