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The impact of team agility within large organizations to adapt

a novel software application.

Master thesis Final Version

Anastasia Krivopalova 10013903

17 August 2018

MSc. in Business Administration – Digital Track University of Amsterdam

Supervisor: Prof. em. dr. ir. H. Oppelland Second Reader: Prof. dr. H.P. Borgman Supervisor Deloitte: Dr. A. de Kievit

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Student Anastasia Krivopalova who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Acknowledgements

First of all I want to thank my supervisor Hans Oppelland, who was always ready to help when I reached out, comfort and give insightful thoughts for this thesis to be conducted. He knew how to support me to conduct my research, how to keep my focus and overcome the massive amount of data I obtained. He was always there to make time when I had a hurdle or just did not know how to continue!

I think a good professor is one that guides someone along the academic way instead of tells a student what to do, someone who is a mentor. For that I praise him and am very

thankful that he guided me with the closure of this thesis to the start of my next chapter in life.

Secondly I want to thank my supervisor at Deloitte: Ad de Kievit who was always ready to guide and listen to me when I needed help or to support me in certain major

decisions. On top of that I want to thank him that he let me conduct my own research without any constraints or guiding me into certain directions. His purpose was always to help me without a beneficial motive. For that I am really grateful and know that this man does his job with integrity.

Thirdly I want to thank all the respondents that filled in the survey and all the interviewees that took the time, while having a tight schedule to answer difficult questions and provide sensitive information. On top of that, I want to thank all the colleagues that helped me during my stay at Deloitte to ask critical questions, listen to my thoughts, complains, ideas and explain certain phenomena. Everyone was very helpful and honest!

Finally I want to thank Deloitte that this organization gave me the opportunity to have access to everything and a nice working environment to write this research with the ease of the huge databank and sources. I have learned a lot during my 7 month thesis internship!

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Table of Contents

Statement of originality... ii Acknowledgements ... iii Abstract ... vi Abbreviations ... vii 1. Introduction ... 1 1.1. Research Problem ... 2 1.2. Research Objectives ... 3 1.3. Research Methods ... 4 1.4. Thesis Structure ... 6 2. Literature review ... 7

2.1. Enterprise Resource Planning Systems ... 7

2.1.1 Definition of Enterprise Resource Planning ... 8

2.1.2 Processes of an ERP system ... 10

2.1.3 Different types of ERP systems ... 11

2.1.4 Critical Success Factors (CSF) of implementing an ERP system ... 13

2.2. Project complexity... 15

2.3. Team Agility ... 16

3. Research Design... 19

3.1. Research Method ... 19

3.2. Triangulation ... 20

3.3. Conceptual Research Model... 22

3.4. Scientific quality ... 24

4. Data Collection ... 25

4.1. Case and vendor selection ... 25

4.2. Complexity of the project ... 27

4.3. Degree of agility ... 27

4.4. Impact of teams on implementation success ... 29

5. Data Analysis ... 32

5.1. Project Complexity ... 32

5.2. Team agility... 35

Agility Team number 1 ... 38

5.3.1 2.1.5 Agility Team number 2 ... 40

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2.1.8 Agility Team number 5 ... 46

5.3. Successful ERP implementation process ... 48

Clear understanding of strategic goals ... 50

5.3.1 Commitment by top-management... 51

5.3.2 Excellent project management ... 52

5.3.3 Organizational change management ... 53

5.3.4 A balanced implementation team ... 55

5.3.5 Data accuracy ... 56

5.3.6 Extensive education and training ... 57

5.3.7 Focused performance measures ... 58

5.3.8 Multi-site issues ... 59

5.3.9 6. Discussion ... 61

6.1. Team 1 – Middle Agility Team ... 65

6.2. Team 2 - Middle Agility Team ... 67

6.3. Team 3 - Low Agility Team ... 68

6.4. Team 4 - Low Agility Team ... 69

6.5. Team 5 - High Agility Team ... 71

7. Conclusion ... 74

7.1. Limitations ... 76

7.2. Recommendations for future research... 78

Bibliography ... 79

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand and explore how the degree of team agility can help to implement a more successful ERP system. More specific, to understand how the agility inside teams can help coping with a complex ERP project implementation. Because a more balanced implementation team can help to manage fluctuations, change and keeps the team flexible continuously. There is still too little academic research done on behalf of team agility in co-operation with complex ERP projects, therefore a mixed method approach with a quantitative and qualitative strategy is taken to find new insights through triangulation. Starting with the knowledge gap in the literature review. After the literature review the research method with a conceptual research model will be presented. Data for this study is conducted through the help of Deloitte resources. 37 Respondents from five teams filled in a survey and 10 of those are carefully picked and interviewed: one consultant and one team manager to show balanced results. Showing in the results chapter the complexity of a project though an anonymized document analysis. The degree of agility from low-, middle-, and high- agility, with a survey analysis and how this degree can influence a successful ERP implementation process through an interview-analysis based on the perception of team mates. Resulting in a complex project with one high-, two middle-, and two low-agility teams. Showing that all three propositions are confirmed, resulting in a confirmation that it is

important to look into teams and how they work in an agile way, remembering that agility is a state of mind and can be compared as the heart of a team, when it works less good, it still works, only not as efficiently and effectively. Afterwards a discussion and conclusion are given. Finally, the limitations are shown and future research is proposed.

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Abbreviations

Abbreviation Full phrase

CRM Customer Relationship Management

CSF Critical Success Factors

EBS R12 eBusiness Suite R12

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning

EVD Enterprise Value Delivery (Deloitte Library)

HRM Human Resource Management

IT Information Technology

MRP Material Requirements Planning

MRPII Manufacturing Resource Planning

‘Other Consultancy Firm’

The other firm that helps implementing the Oracle ERP system, for anonymization reasons, the name is not presented

R. Respondent number

PROJECT Project name of the large international organization in the maritime,

energy, oil & gas industry

SaaS Software-as-a-Service

SDLC Systems Development Life Cycle

SPI Software Process Improvement

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“Often the problem lies not with the ERP concept. But in the demand for quick fixes and rapid cures to underlying structural problems”

-Dr. R. Kalakota & M. Robinson-

1. Introduction

The value and importance of working with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is recognized as being cost efficient by different types of organizations in the Netherlands. An ERP system is used to help departments connect and work in alignment as one organization (Smaizys & Vasilegas, 2009). Implementing such a system, when done accurately, gains a competitive business advantage due to automation. Unfortunately, such projects of

implementing ERP can be timely, costly and lack in transparency (Ivarsson & Gorschek, 2009). When such ambitious implementations projects fail, they become high liabilities such as the recent Lidl-project, where after seven years, the implementation of the ERP system: SAP is cancelled (Cravero, 2018). To enhance this type of system implementation with less failure, a flexible approach can be introduced to gain relevant and improved business

knowledge, which creates a more seamless development process. This approach is defined as agile working. Working in an agile way allows to cope with a dynamic environment where requirements change frequently while software needs to stay of high quality. On top of that, working closely and involving the customer, enhances greater customer satisfaction (Al-Zewairi, Billtawi, Etaiwi, & Shaout, 2017). Although agile methodologies are used in software development, agile working can be adapted in implementing an ERP systems and outperform in such a way traditional approaches (Smaizys & Vasilegas, 2009). Important is to look at what conditions and under what factors ERP implementations can succeed (Finney & Corbett, 2007).

When such an implementation project becomes more complex, social phenomenon become important. The way teams work and the dynamics of the team can have an influence on the success factors of an ERP implementation process (Sarker & Lee, 2003). An ERP

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the process (Juell-Skielse, Nilsson, Nordqvist, & Westergren, 2012). Though the way teams are constructed, what type of dynamics they have and how they work as a team is important when the project has a complex nature, which can result in an easier, faster and more successful ERP implementation (Carlos et al., 2016; Cobb, 2011).

1.1. Research Problem

Different approaches of how to best implement an ERP system are researched for some time (Beatty & Williams, 2006). Nonetheless, academic literature provides a contrasting approach with how consultants implement an ERP system (Hoda & Noble, 2017). Implementing an ERP system is complex on its own, making it hard to have an one-fits-all approach (Sowan & Tahboub, 2015). It can vary across industry and specific company, causing a best practice approaches conducted from previous projects (Deloitte Consulting LLP, 2012). Therefore, academic research is still scarce, as most of the existing literature is written by consultants (Abrahamsson, Salo, Ronkainen, & Warsta, 2002). Existing literature about team agility does not offer a comprehensive answer about the possible impact on a more successful ERP implementation process. Previous research shows and focusses on which steps a project needs to entail to create a successful ERP implementation, whereas teams implementing such a system are often overseen, while they can contribute and improve this success (Carlos et al., 2016). For this reason it can be argued that there needs to be more research done into

balanced implementation teams. Hong and Kim state that to improve the understanding of an ERP implementation success, there needs to be more thoroughly research done into project team competence (Hong & Kim, 2002, p. 36). This project team competence will be further elaborated in this research as ‘team agility’.

The implementation process is designed as a project with various teams to divide the core processes and capabilities of implementing an ERP system. However, these projects of implementing ERP are more often subject to excess deadlines, than produce the expected

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output in the required time frame (Juell-Skielse et al., 2012). Resulting in timely and costly projects, that can contain hidden implementation costs (Hong & Kim, 2002). Vendors that facilitate ERP implementation projects become liable for delivering an unrealistic project plan, that creates disappointment and can interfere with potential future client collaboration and brand image loss (Misra, Singh, & Bisui, 2016). Even when a project is designed

accurately, there are several aspect that can go wrong in the implementation process. A good example are unorganized teams that have problems with working together (Carlos et al., 2016). The more reason to look inside these teams and understand how teams can have an influence on a successful ERP implementation.

1.2. Research Objectives

The goal of this research is to understand why ERP system implementations are timely and costly and how this implementation process can be improved by adopting an agile working approach inside teams. Especially, even for stable environments, agile working can enhance a considerable advantage for ERP implementations because fluctuations and change happen frequently. Interesting is to get deep insight and explain why agile working is still not implemented on large scales, when there are significant result, that working agile can enhance even when a project has fixed and predefined end goals (Ahlbäck, Fahrbach, Murarka, & Salo, 2017). More specific, this research is about understanding what the best agile way for implementing an ERP system is and what factors are important to take into consideration. Through an inductive and deductive approach, this research will be a mixed method embedded single case study to find in-depth improvements through a survey and semi-structured interviews in providing the best flexible (agility) way of implementing an ERP system.

Theoretically it is relevant to look differently at complex ERP implementation projects, with the main focus on the agility inside teams. Resulting in the research objective

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which will explore and see if there is a connection between teams working in an agile way with the right incentives to contribute to a more successful ERP implementation. Former research focusses more on small- to middle- complex ERP implementation projects, whereas this research will focus on large complex projects. With the intended research results to contribute to academic literature by showing whether teams can impact the implementation success. To structure this research the following research question is defined:

“How does the degree of team agility influence a successful ERP process implementation when operating in a complex project environment?”

In order to answer the research question the following sub-questions are formulated:

1. What is the level of project complexity? 2. What is the degree of agility inside each team?

3. How does the degree of team agility influence the success of an ERP implementation process?

The following sub-questions will consist of variables and conditions that will be shown and elaborated upon in the literature review. The first sub-question will be answered through a document analysis, the second through a survey analysis and the final sub-question though an interview analysis. In the conclusion chapter an answer to the research question will be given.

1.3. Research Methods

This research utilizes a mixed method embedded single case approach with a qualitative and quantitative strategy. Through an exploratory design a better understanding of team agility

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Lewis, & Thornhill, 2011). To create a high validity this research will take a triangulation approach (Thurmond, 2001). The boundary condition will be the variable complexity of a project and will be analyzed through an anonymized document analysis of the organization (Baccarini, 1996; Carlos et al., 2016; Moore, Payne, Autry, & Griffis, 2016; Qureshi & Kang, 2015; Sarker & Lee, 2003; Vidal, Marle, & Bocquet, 2011). The independent variable team agility will be conducted through a survey analysis to show the agility inside teams (Carlos et al., 2016; Cobb, 2011; Gregorio, 2012; Jong, Elfring, & Elfring, 2010; Mafakheri, Nasiri, & Mousavi, 2008). While the dependent variable successful ERP implementation will be tested through an interview analysis (Chun-qing, Guang-hui, & Yun-xiu, 2006; Dezdar & Ainin, 2011; Finney & Corbett, 2007; Hong & Kim, 2002; Markus, Axline, & Petrie, 2000; Sowan & Tahboub, 2015; Umble, Haft, & Umble, 2003).

Through in-depth interviews, conclusions can be designed and interesting new information can provide a contribution to academic research (Yin, 2013). The case study approach is suitable for this research, as this method provides an in-depth description and exploration technique to find possible answers on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions in this research to find meaningful view of real-life events to contribute to the scientific gap that is found in previous literature (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010; Yin, 2006).

To find the scientific gap how and what kind of effect team agility has on

implementing ERP systems, an inductive approach will be taken to find relevant information to conduct appropriate interviews. Afterwards a deductive research approach will be taken to come to certain conclusions and create meaningful insights to the academic environment. The research approach is presented in figure 1.

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Figure 1: Research Approach

1.4. Thesis Structure

In order to answer the research question, a case study approach in combination with semi-structured interviews and a survey will be conducted (Yin, 2013). This research has the following structure. The literature review is presented in the second chapter, where the conditions of the sub-question will be explained according to relevant academic literature. In the third chapter methods of conducting this case study are elaborated, as it clarifies which decisions are made regarding to the research design, while the fourth chapter focusses on data collection. The fifth chapter discusses the main insights from the findings in the results section. Citations from the qualitative interviews are presented and helpful information to answer the research question is provided. In the sixth chapter the most valuable findings are combined and conclude comprehensive insights of the impact of team agility on

implementing an ERP process. The final chapter covers the conclusion, limitations and recommendations for future research (Table 1).

CHAPTER 1 Introduction

CHAPTER 2 Literature Review

CHAPTER 3 Research Design

CHAPTER 4 Data Collection

CHAPTER 5 Data Analysis

CHAPTER 6 Discussion

CHAPTER 7 Conclusion and limitations and future research recommendations Interviews - Inductive

understand and find in-depth insights

Case study - Inductive

find gap for insights

Literature review - Deductive

previous academic literature

Information gathering - Inductive

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2. Literature review

In the following chapter an extensive overview of previous literature regarding team agility and ERP system implementations will be described. Literature is obtained through Google scholar, Deloitte resources, several academic reports and original A-journal websites. The two concepts will help explain what the critical success factors of team agility contain in the ERP environment. The first part provides a definition and benefits of an ERP system, shows the different processes of an ERP system implementation, what type of ERP systems there are and what the most important factors to take into consideration to have a successful ERP implementation process. The second part explains how ERP projects are constructed, what is important in such a project and what are the factors that makes an ERP project complex. The third part explains the upcoming term agile, what team agility means, what the difference with agile methods is and how team agility is measured in this research.

2.1. Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

The Netherlands is a stable economic environment that adopts to novel technology quickly and is well known as one of the innovative market leaders (Van Voorden, 2017). In order to remain relevant and sustain a competitive advantage, organizations need to continuously improve their software processes (Ivarsson & Gorschek, 2009). Whereas information technology (IT) used to be developed in-house, with the rapid economic growth,

organizations started to purchase ERP systems to become more strategic based information platforms. Moreover, Jinno, Abe & Iizuka state that “By implementing ERP systems, companies can standardize their business processes and thereby manage them more effectively and efficiently” (Jinno, Abe, & Iizuka, 2017, p. 1). Therefore, to reduce cost, create rapid implementations and high system quality, organizations need to integrate all departments and all services to work in a seamless way by implementing such a system (Hong & Kim, 2002).

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2.1.1 Definition of Enterprise Resource Planning

Due to constantly adapting to new business partners, for example when organizations merge together and environmental changes, large organizations need to invest in complex

implementation systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) (Dos Santos, Silva, & De Campos, 2008). Furthermore, with the appearance of globalization and technological advantages of data, ERP systems need to be advanced to the current developments in order to gain a competitive advantage (Dezdar & Ainin, 2011, p. 911). Implementing an ERP system is not only complex, there are elements organizations need to take consideration with: change-, and risk- management, business process reengineering and beyond technical

knowledge of execution (Dos Santos et al., 2008, p. 345). Importantly implementing an ERP is about organizational change, because the whole organization needs to adapt to this new software (Harwood, 2016). While skilled and experienced employees for implementing such a software are scarce (Bingi, Sharma, & Godla, 2006). Therefore, most of the projects of implementing are outsourced to vendors (Sowan & Tahboub, 2015). The downfall becomes when an ERP system is not correctly implemented, even so the impact of the implementation process can result in bankruptcy (Grabski, Leech, & Schmidt, 2011, p. 41).

The forerunner of ERP dates back to the early 1970’s when a strong need from the business emerged to keep inventory stocks and costs low in order to become more efficient and competitive. This type is called Material Requirements Planning (MRP) where one could trace which specific materials are needed to produce an item in a more systematically and efficient way. In the 1980’s, due to affordability of technology it became possible to add financial activities to inventory resulting in Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII). Resulting into integrating in the 1990’s of all areas of an organization together into

on-premise Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) (Umble et al., 2003, p. 242). Which differs with traditional software that is built in-house, where add-ons are difficult to add. Whereas with

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the integrated ERP system, these add-ons, also requirements called, can be applied when required (Rashid, Zealand, Hossain, & Patrick, 2002, p. 2). The current trend is Postmodern ERP, focusing on the Cloud with less customization requirements and more business driven solutions to reduce cost and standardize more processes (Phelan, 2018). For the scope of this research the focus will maintain on on-premise ERP systems. In Figure 2 an overview of the history of ERP is shown.

Figure 2: ERP Software Timeline and how it evolves (Ganly, 2018, p. 4; Hedges, 2018; Phelan, 2018)

More precisely, an ERP system is categorized by Dos Santos (2008), as “A standardized software designed to integrate the internal value chain of an enterprise, based on an integrated database and consists on diverse modules aiming specific business functions” (Dos Santos et al., 2008, p. 344). It is an integrated information system that tightly combines business processes and all the relevant information of different departments from the

organization to work as a whole (Bingi et al., 2006; Chun-qing et al., 2006; Harwood, 2016). With the main focus to generate and communicate timely and accurate information (Umble et al., 2003, p. 241). On top of that Fui-Hoon Nah (2006, p. 99) state that: “The ERP system not only aids in standardizing business processes across an enterprise but also helps

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management increase their visibility of the business by providing real-time financial and production information”. Concluding that an ERP system can create different benefits, only when implemented not accurately they can become a liability with different costs and capital investments. For these reasons ERP systems are categorized as complex, expensive, powerful and proprietary solutions that are implemented based on the company’s requirements (Rashid et al., 2002, p. 2; Umble et al., 2003).

When implementing such a system in a correct way it can create an unified enterprise view of the business and encompasses all functions and departments where in the database all business transactions are entered, recorded, processed, monitored and reported (Umble et al., 2003, p. 241). To stay beneficial it is recommended to keep client customizations to a

minimum. Focus on the infrastructure processes that are already developed in previous projects and keep the core processes to a minimum. Because each new and customized requirement needs to be developed through engineers making it expensive and timely (Conboy, 2009). To implement an ERP system correctly, it is divided into three implementation processes, where each process is often completed by different vendor companies (Grabski et al., 2011).

2.1.2 Processes of an ERP system

To implement a successful ERP system in an organization, there are a couple of stages that need to be taken. These stages are categorized as the ERP implementation cycle and are based on the complexity of a project and the volume of client requirements, which are company specific (Arora & Arora, 2016, p. 272). Hasibuan and Dantes (2012) find that there are different names for different stages, shown in Table 2. Whereas they categorize them into five stages, namely: project preparation, technology selection, project formulation,

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(2016, pp. 2-3). The difference between the researchers are the three stages that are overall the same, which can be divided into three implementation processes: pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation process (Grabski et al., 2011, p. 41). Because organizations have little information what implementing an ERP system entails, vendor firms are deployed to complete one of the processes, to enhance qualitative independent

implementations (Sowan & Tahboub, 2015). For the scope of this research, the

implementation process is maintained. How the processes are conducted depends on the type of ERP system.

Table 2: Comparison of ERP Implementation Life Cycle (Hasibuan & Dantes, 2012, p. 3)

2.1.3 Different types of ERP systems

The software required, depends on the environment an organization is operating in, the number of employees, the amount of departments and other factors that can be of influence to enhance the implementation process (Smaizys & Vasilegas, 2009). ORACLE, an ERP

implementation provider describes ERP as “A system with software packages, used by organizations to manage day-to-day business activities, such as accounting, procurement, project management and manufacturing. Together they enable the flow of data between them by collecting an organization’s shared transactional data from multiple sources”

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need to find a suitable and applicable way for their organization to achieve effectiveness and efficiency (Jinno et al., 2017). For this reason implementing an ERP system depends on several factors, the most important ones are the critical success factors (CSF). These factors are essential to perform successfully an ERP implementation and will be described in the last paragraph of this section (Finney & Corbett, 2007). An ERP system can be divided into on-premise and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) which is categorized as Cloud software. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant shows in Figure 3 the types of ERP systems that are taking the lead

nowadays (Van Decker, Anderson, & Guay, 2018). The selection is based on the ability to execute and the completeness of vision in the market based on the current visibility of a software system. Due to the nature of this case study the focus is on large organizations for implementing an on-premise ERP instead of ERP Cloud system, because of the various requirements and privacy regulations an on-premise system entails.

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2.1.4 Critical Success Factors (CSF) of implementing an ERP system

ERP systems create value through the adoption of new ways of working in an organization (Saunders, Guay, & Ganly, 2018, p. 5), because organizations can standardize their business processes and thereby manage them more efficiently and effectively (Jinno et al., 2017). However the advantages, ERP systems have the characteristics of being long, expensive and complex (Maher, 2014). One of the most common methods to measure an ERP

implementation success is through the success triangle approach, where a completed project is categorized successful when two or more of the following criteria are met: cost, duration and scope. However, it is more subtle than that, academic literature shows different critical success factors (CSF) that are needed to be considered with, to create a successful ERP implementation process (Sowan & Tahboub, 2015).

The implementation success is described by Hong and Kim (2002, p. 30) as “The degree of deviation from a project goal in terms of expected cost, time, system performance and benefits”. While generally critical success factors (CSF) provide the necessarily elements for an organization to achieve its objectives when implementing an ERP system.

Understanding the CSFs can be a valuable step towards a successful implementation process (Finney & Corbett, 2007). Unfortunately a high rate of the implementation projects fail (Taylor, Nah, Zuckweiler, & Lau, 2003). Gartner, an analyst firm estimates that

approximately 60% of all ERP project fail to meet their objectives (Saunders et al., 2018, p. 5). A reason for failure of implementing an ERP system can occur when organizations focus only on one specific CSF and ignore different other types that can have an influence.

However, the most influential reasons why ERP implementations fail can be

explained by a poor selection of an appropriate implementation team, poor planning or poor management, business goals that change during a project, absence of business management support (Umble et al., 2003, p. 250) and the lack of understanding of the organizational fit of

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ERP and implementation contingencies (Hong & Kim, 2002). Grabski et al., (2011) state that more research is needed into teams that can result in successful ERP implementation and usage. Other factors that organizations need to take into account with to have a successful ERP implementation process are presented in Table 3.

Author Critical Success Factors

(Fui-Hoon Nah, 2006) 1. Business plan and vision 2. Change management 3. Communication

4. ERP team composition, skills and compensation 5. Project Management

6. Top management support and championship

7. Systems analysis, selection and technical implementation (Bingi et al., 2006) 1. Top management commitment

2. Reengineering 3. Integration 4. ERP consultants 5. Implementation time 6. Implementation costs 7. ERP vendors

8. Selecting the right employees 9. Training employees 10. Employee morale

(Umble et al., 2003) 1. Clear understanding of strategic goals 2. Commitment by top-management 3. Excellent project management 4. Organizational change management 5. A balanced implementation team 6. Data accuracy

7. Extensive education and training 8. Focused performance measures 9. Multi-site issues

(Dezdar & Ainin, 2011) 1. Top management support 2. Training and education 3. Communication (Finney & Corbett, 2007) Strategical

1. Top management commitment and support 2. Visioning and planning

3. Build a business case 4. Project champion

5. Implementation strategy and timeframe 6. Vanilla ERP

7. Project management 8. Change management 9. Managing cultural change Tactical

1. Balanced team

2. Project team: the best and brightest 3. Communication plan

4. Empowered decision makers 5. Team morale and motivation 6. Project cost planning and management 7. BPR and software configuration 8. Legacy system consideration 9. IT infrastructure

10. Client consultation 11. Selection of ERP

12. Consultant selection and relationship 13. Training and job redesign

14. Troubleshooting/crises management 15. Data conversion and integrity 16. System testing

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2.2. Project complexity

This part explains how ERP projects are constructed, what is important in such a project and what are the factors that makes an ERP project complex.

ERP systems need to be carefully planned and executed, especially when

organizations are large and have a complex nature. Because data that needs to be transferred from previous database system to the new one, takes time and costs (Bingi et al., 2006).

Especially when organizations want various requirements in their core- or infrastructure processes, because they need to be custom build by developers, which is time and cost consuming. When companies have little requirements or customizations, the project can be fulfilled in a faster paste, as there is little additional software build (Jinno et al., 2017). Therefore, a blueprint is often used to keep costs low and making processes easier to implement. Such a blueprint is called IndustyPrint and is a standard process map of a

particular industry with all the infrastructure and core processes mapped out. Making this an effective and efficient way of implementing business processes (Deloitte Consulting LLP, 2012, p. 72).

Therefore, project complexity depends on various factors and across different fields, resulting in “project complexity is the property of a project which makes it difficult to

understand, foresee and keep under control its overall behavior, even when given reasonably complete information about the project system” (Vidal et al., 2011, pp. 718–719).

More specifically project complexity is referred to the difficulty, entailing various interrelated parts and captures the heterogeneity of projects in terms of organizational interdependencies, duration and scope (Baccarini, 1996, p. 201; Moore et al., 2016, p. 6; Vidal et al., 2011). Importantly are the uncertainties that the project brings along, because if there are no uncertainties, the project would be only complicated and not complex (Qureshi & Kang, 2015, p. 166). Where the duration shows whether projects are going to be postponed, if the

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scope stays the same or changes throughout the project and if there are interdependencies which can create higher cost (Moore et al., 2016, p. 6).

Other characteristics of project complexity are categorized by Qureshi and Kang (2015) by social-, technological-, environmental- and organizational viewpoints. Where organizational viewpoints are categorized as being the most important.

2.3. Team Agility

This part explains the upcoming term agile, what team agility means, what the difference with agile methods is and how team agility is measured in this research.

In order to help different organizations get faster and attain easier the end goal,

practitioners look into new approaches which categorize themes and trends in the world of technology. Large corporations need a different approach of working where strengths are embraced and weaknesses can be improved in a collective way (Verheul, 2017). This new approach became: agile working. The Oxford dictionary explains the word agile with ‘The ability to move quickly and easily’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2018). The official start of the agile concept, started in 2001 with 17 software developers which stated four main values and 12 principles (Appendix 1). The four main values are (Beedle et al., 2001):

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 2. Working software over comprehensive documentation 3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4. Responding to change over following a plan

Nowadays the main focus of creating flexibility and moving towards a goal is done in agile ways of working (Jeyasingham, 2016). Only agile is a relatively new concept and has relatively new characterization. The terminology agile ERP, is about ERP system, only with

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the added advantage of working in an agile way. Which allows developers work in a flexible way with the ability to rectify problems or bugs (Misra et al., 2016). Moreover agile is a mindset and teams need to be well educated, embrace the difficulties to understand that agile working is difficult and not applicable for every organization. Depending on the project, the manager needs to understand which approach is best to use under the given circumstances (Dingsøyr, Nerur, Balijepally, & Moe, 2012). Agile working is mostly used in uncertain environments, where the scope is still undefined. Because an agile team has a more flexible determination of adapting to an ever-changing business environment and customer demands (Almeida, 2017). Since the end goal of implementing an ERP system has a clear scope, implementing such systems take place in stable environments. Though, even when the end goal is clear, the path taken to implement can vary and change throughout the process, depending on the requirements and uncertainties that come along with the project. Taking into consideration that the steps towards the end goal are long and can take more time

projects initially planned (Ahlbäck et al., 2017). Therefore, there are things that can go wrong and it would be interesting, that through a new mindset, the right approach can contribute to this change. Agile teams are focused on delivering a business value right after the start of a project, reducing hereby risks of not fulfilling the contract requirements (Abrahamsson et al., 2002, p. 14).

For this reason agility should be categorized in this research as a project team performance and not as a certain methodology (Carlos et al., 2016). It can be seen as a

multidisciplinary team effort, that requires a changing set of skills (Harwood, 2016). Because having certain knowledge and skills and sharing or combining it gives greater outcomes than working individually (Fui-Hoon Nah, 2006). Therefore, a practice based agile method can be

introduced: team agility. Conboy defines agility as being more than flexibility and calls it: ‘proactive, reactive and change-embracing’ (2009, pp. 336-337). Moreover, team agility

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explains the importance to create the right delivery approach that emphasizes flexibility, integrated customer involvement, and rapid delivery of value (deloitteresources.com, 2018). Especially when there are uncertainties or insecurities in the environment, agile teams work together in a flexible way and adapt to these changes, where the collective feeling becomes more important (Fui-Hoon Nah, 2006; Hoda & Noble, 2017). Though it is still unclear which steps teams need to take to become more agile, people need to see it as a vision that

encompasses a philosophy of the new teamwork (Beedle et al., 2001).

Therefore Gregorio (2012) categorized in his research certain variables that can be of influence, such as team dynamics, that create a healthy environment and how team mates adjust to certain changes, showing how flexible they are in planning and to the environment. Other researchers: Jong, Elfring & Elfring (2010) also categorizes responsibilities that makes team mates more willing to collaborate and share when they are more dependable on a specific task, whereas autonomy shows that they are capable to make their own choices, after consideration with the team. This makes team composition an important factor for diversity between gender, age, ethnicity and different skillsets.

It is important to know how to combine and apply skills and tools. While through collaboration this knowledge can expand (Gray, 2015). Depending on the formal or informal communication type, it is beneficial to give team mates the feeling of belonging. This can be done through daily stand up meetings, knowledge sharing and collaboration with each other (Carlos et al., 2016; Mafakheri et al., 2008). On top of that the team culture can set the way for a successful collaboration and sharing environment. Creating a better understanding of the scope definition and makes it easier to deploy, ensuring minimal documentation and process restriction (Gregorio, 2012; Jong et al., 2010). Resulting in agile teams that can adopt faster to new and changing requirements, which reduce time and costs spent on the project due to reduced rework (Smaizys & Vasilegas, 2009).

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3. Research Design

This study is centered around the following research question: How does the degree of team agility influence a successful ERP process implementation when operating in a complex project environment? It focusses on the specific consideration of organizations to select certain teams and how these teams operate and have an impact in a complex project environment on ERP implementation success. In this section, the research method and the reason for choosing a mixed-method embedded single case study approach is explained.

3.1. Research Method

To answer the research question, data is obtained through an embedded single case study, because this shows an in-depth research in ‘why’ and ‘how’ certain decisions and thoughts are taken (Yin, 2009). It helps to explore, describe and explain certain aspects, though the focus in on answering the ‘why’ question (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010). While to ensure

different views and independent responses to the research question a triangulation approach is taken. The first part of this research adopts a quantitative approach. More specifically, it is a quantitative content analysis subjective to statistical analyses which will provide descriptive statistics and will show a possibility to help and develop a conclusion on the research

question. Through this method every team mate, participating in the project can be reached to ensure that data is reliable and consistent (Saunders et al., 2011). The second part will contain the qualitative approach showing in-depth and underlying concepts. As this research adopts an embedded case study strategy, it uses one large organization as a single case within which five teams implementing the core ERP implementation process, are the embedded cases, because the unit of analysis consists of five teams in which the degree of agility is measured, called the sub-units (Saunders et al., 2011, pp. 146–147).

This case is chosen to conduct and find interesting insight about team agility and how team mates perceive and act inside teams towards a successful ERP implementation process.

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It is about how human behavior inside teams can influence a more successful ERP implementation project.

This research has a cross sectional time frame as it will show two time moments of data collection of the survey and the interviews. The data collected will be in a short period of time, obtained between April until July 2018 (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 155). This data is collected sequentially, which means that each method of data collection will be obtained in two different stages (Yin, 2009).

Possible constraints from this research could be that respondents have limited availability and a tight schedule, because some team mates are positioned across different countries, making it difficult to have a face-to-face interview and through Skype, there is no possibility to look each other in the eyes and connect with the interviewees. Therefore, this research can be postponed due to the availability of every respondent, by cause of the importance to collect data of all participants. When interviews are cancelled or asked to be held through an online device, a new appointment will be made to ensure full eye contact and optimal disclosure (Ryan, Coughlan, & Cronin, 2009). Another constraint could be the ethical issues, as all the interviewed respondents are from Deloitte Netherlands, which can provide similar answers, though because the interviewees are from different ethnicities and functions, they are still relevant. Nevertheless, to maintain a high validity and quality of this research a triangulation approach will be taken (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010).

3.2. Triangulation

Conducting research based on semi-structured interviews creates often researcher bias where interviewees try to answer with socially wanted answers, can sometimes hide underlying motives and answer moderately because of the fear to harm the organization. Another reason to conduct a triangulation approach is by reaching all participants that are involved in the

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project, in the scope of reachability and accessibility, resulting in a higher data source triangulation (Thurmond, 2001). Saunders et al., state that: “Triangulation is a design that uses two or more independent sources of data or data collection methods to corroborate research findings within a study” (2011, p.154). In Figure 4 the triangulation approach is shown.

Figure 4: Triangulation approach in this mixed-method embedded single case study

The research activities together with the literature review as discussed in the previous chapter are utilized to create a conceptual research model in the next section.

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3.3. Conceptual Research Model

During the literature review ERP system implementation and the success factors to implement such a complex project are elaborated upon. Showing that the complexity of a project has an influence on time, speed and scope of an EPR implementation. Afterwards the concept of agility is explained, where team agility is less accurately measured and researched. Though previous research state that there needs to be more focus on balanced implementation teams which can be of great influence for a successful ERP implementation project.

After thoroughly analyzing and evaluating academic literature this research takes a triangulation approach where the boundary condition will be the variable complexity of a project and will be analyzed through a anonymized document analysis of the organization. This variable has 10 conditions, which will be measured on a 10-point scale, providing a point for every condition that is met. These conditions are: duration, scope,

interdependencies, social viewpoints, technological viewpoints, environmental viewpoints, differentiations, uncertainties and decision making (Baccarini, 1996; Carlos et al., 2016; Moore et al., 2016; Qureshi & Kang, 2015; Sarker & Lee, 2003; Vidal et al., 2011). To enhance the reliability informative quotes from the semi-structured interviews will be given as illustration.

The independent variable team agility will be conducted through a survey analysis to test the agility inside teams. Because team agility has no clear defined parameters, the measurement conditions are conducted globally, resulting in eight conditions. Team agility will be measured by: dynamism, team composition, communications, skills and knowledge, culture, deployment, autonomy and flexibility (Carlos et al., 2016; Cobb, 2011; Gregorio, 2012; Jong et al., 2010; Mafakheri et al., 2008). To enhance the reliability informative quotes from semi-structured interviews will be given as an illustration.

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While the dependent variable successful ERP implementation process will be conducted through an interview analysis with the following conditions: clear understanding of strategic goals, commitment by top-management, excellent project management,

organizational change management, a balanced implementation team, data accuracy,

extensive education and training, focused performance measures and multi-site issues (Chun-qing et al., 2006; Dezdar & Ainin, 2011; Finney & Corbett, 2007; Hong & Kim, 2002; Markus et al., 2000; Sowan & Tahboub, 2015; Umble et al., 2003). To show a clear overview, the dependent and independent variables are shown in Figure 5: the conceptual research model with the following propositions:

P1: High team agility has a positive influence on a successful ERP implementation process.

P2: Middle team agility has a positive influence on a successful ERP implementation process.

P3: Low team agility has a negative influence on a successful ERP implementation process.

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3.4. Scientific quality

To conduct a valid and reliable case study, this research will focus on the scientific quality though maintaining a high reliability, internal validity, construct validity and external validity.

Reliability is maintained through explaining all the data collection techniques, to yield comparable results when this research is replicated. Through a thoroughly literature review, detailed plan of conduct and transparency this research tries to aim high reliability (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 156; Yin, 2013). Validity is also maintained through a thoroughly research design and the concept of triangulation. By researching that the literature review claims to investigate what is states, gives a high construct validity. Internal validity is maintained through making causal and logical conclusions. While the external validity is somewhat difficult to generalize, because of the specific industries that the large organization has, it is possible to generalize the results over large organizations. In conclusion this research shows that ERP implementation projects are complex and are interesting to research, especially as case study (Gibbert & Ruigrok, 2010; Saunders et al., 2011, pp. 156–158).

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4. Data Collection

In this chapter an overview is given how data for this triangulation approach is collected. With writing this research Deloitte Consulting in the Netherlands provided full access to the capabilities and resources of all the needed information. This organization has a huge amount of resources and knowledge database that can provide access to different academic and practical literature and can facilitate to find appropriate respondents, documents and intel to continue in obtaining relevant, useful, sensitive and private data to conduct an interesting research.

It is important to correctly optimize data collection, therefore the case is carefully chosen and complies to several criteria of a large organization that implements an on-premise ERP system. The large organization that is chosen is anonymized due to privacy regulations because it is an ongoing project. Hereafter the organization is called: 'large international organization in the maritime, energy, oil & gas industry'. Within this organization five different sub-units of teams are operating for implementing an ERP system, making his is an embedded case study.

4.1. Case and vendor selection

For this research it is important that respondents comply with the selection criteria. As a result respondents are carefully chosen to collect insightful data. Because the way teams are composed and the specialist implementing an ERP system are scarce as this is sensitive information and difficult to implement. Because this research focusses on large organizations with complex projects, Oracle an ERP system is chosen. This database system states itself as: “Oracle, a global provider of enterprise cloud computing, is empowering businesses of all sizes on their journey of digital transformation. Oracle Cloud provides leading-edge capabilities in software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, and

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data as a service” (Oracle, 2018, p. 2). Although ERP Cloud gains more popularity, when the chosen organization started to implement Oracle in 2013, an on-premise ERP system was chosen.

Different vendors, shown in Figure 6, compete for providing the best services. One of the leader vendors segment is Deloitte, making it a company that provides high competent and qualified consultants for the implementation process. A strength of choosing for Deloitte entails that the company has a good global focus and spread of resources with relevant

industry expertise to support global, digital transformation journeys and access to such scarce implementation projects. Weaknesses could be that the services are relatively more

expensive, for this reason initially another vendor was chosen to implement Oracle EBS R12, though resulting in poor management, excess in time and scope, Deloitte was chosen to continue from 2015 and onwards, taking over several teams of ‘Other Consultancy Firm’ (Phelan, 2018).

Figure 6: Magic Quadrant for Oracle Application Services, Worldwide (Stanley, Matson, Longwood, & Wilkins, 2018, p. 3)

In the next sub-chapter each sub-question is explained how data is collected though a document-, survey- and interview analysis with the help of Deloitte resources and capabilities.

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4.2. Complexity of the project

Finding the appropriate documents in a project that is managed by different vendor parties with a changing scope is difficult to obtain. Therefore, contact through Skype, e-mail, the Deloitte database give a comprehensive overview of the document analysis. Because this is an ongoing project, companies, names and other sensitive information are anonymized to protect the privacy and respect the ongoing project. In order to maintain this research and find independent outcomes, the most necessity information is given in this research. Based on the ten conditions: duration, scope, interdependencies, social viewpoints, technical viewpoints, environmental viewpoints, organizational viewpoints, differentiation, uncertainties and decision making each condition is given 1-point on a maximum of a 10-point scale. The complexity of the project will be determined on these conditions through a document analysis provided by Deloitte. While certain conditions will be emphasized with quotes from the interviews to show a greater understanding. Though this document analysis the first sub-question can be answered.

4.3. Degree of agility

Agility is a relatively new concept that is mostly used in organization or software settings. Because balanced implementation teams are becoming more important by anticipating to change and being flexible, a new concept of team agility is constructed. To understand team agility all structured conditions are derived from theory, where a deductive approach is taken (Saunders et al., 2011). Because there are no predefined specific measurables for team agility

which are specific for this research, the degree of team agility is based on descriptive statistics and consists of three categorizations in which the degree of agility is divided into: low agility, middle agility and high agility.

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To ensure triangulation and give every employee an opportunity to show its voice, a survey is conducted to see how every team mate sees and experiences team agility (Saunders et al., 2011). Therefore, it will be important to ask as neutral possible questions, which will not steer respondents to a certain direction in order to avoid biases. Through this quantitative method of analysis independent and different results can be shown. To find the degree of team agility inside each team a survey is conducted to send to all 37 participants of the large organization participating in the five teams to implement an ERP system. Another important reason for choosing the additional survey analysis is caused by the team composition, as this project is conducted by different vendors and employees of the large organization itself with different motives and capabilities. Where teams are composed from Deloitte Netherlands, Deloitte Spain, Deloitte Norway, ‘Other Consulting Firm’, freelancers and team mates from the 'large international organization in the maritime, energy, oil & gas industry'. Therefore, Appendix 2 shows the survey questions divided into the eight conditions: dynamism, team composition, communications, skills & knowledge, culture, deployment, autonomy and flexibility.

To have more valid and reliable answers, the eight conditions are not asked consequently but in random order. This way respondent are less biased in giving certain answers or know exactly where the main focus of the research is upon. While Appendix 3 shows the complete survey, where certain names and organizations and anonymized. In this survey respondent will be first asked to show background information, diversity regulations, team composition and based on a 7-point Likert scale team agility will be measured. Here respondent can fill in to what extent they agree or disagree with 42 questions choosing to fill in from strongly disagree – disagree – somewhat disagree – neither agree or disagree –

somewhat agree – agree and strongly agree. The results will be analyzed through the software Excel where a radar-diagram will be conducted to divide the degree of agility. Making this a

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descriptive analysis. While certain conditions will be emphasized with quotes from the interviews to show a greater understanding or more insights. Through this survey analysis the second sub-question will be answered.

4.4. Impact of teams on implementation success

In order to disclose the influence of agility teams on a successful ERP implementation process, five teams are chosen. Because these five teams provide all necessary variations in the case to find informative insights. These teams consist of employees from Deloitte, the ‘Other Consultancy Firm’ and the maritime, energy, oil & gas organization. Ten interviews with Deloitte employees are held at several Deloitte offices in the Netherlands, taking approximately 55-70 minutes per interview. Respondents are carefully chosen on the principle in which of the five teams they operate and what their job function is to ensure feasibility. Data is collected through two respondents in each team, one consultant and the team-manager of each team to give a balanced view (Yin, 2009).

The interviews are semi-structured because this fits the exploratory nature of this research; the structure is based on the literature review structure, which provides different sub-categories before conducting the interviews, to collect data in a structured way (Yin, 2013). An overview of the interview protocol is presented in Appendix 4. Appointments with Deloitte Netherlands employees are made in advance through face-to-face contact, Skype for Business, e-mails and telephone calls to plan a date and place for the interviews. Places are chosen in compliance with the suitability, availability, physical access and convenience of the interviewees. All interviews are recorded through the Dictaphone-application on an iPhone 6 telephone device, to assure reliability and accuracy of the quality (Shenton, Andrew, 2004). Where every interviewee has the possibility to withdraw and know that anonymization is guaranteed to ensure qualitative and freely spoken answers. During the interview there are no

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notes written to ensure full connection through eye contact between the interviewee and interviewer (Ryan et al., 2009).

All interviews are conducted in English, because of the international character of the organization. After conducting the interviews, the recordings are transcribed through the online application otranscribe.com and deleted afterwards. After collecting and transcribing all interviews, certain data is carefully cleaned up, when it gives no additional meaning to the content. To maintain reliability the transcribed recordings are controlled for the second time to find misspelled words, and connotation mistakes. Obtained data is divided among four main codes and several sub-codes with the help of the software NVivo 12. The software NVivo 12, groups certain informative quotes into codes, showing in a structured way where variables and their characteristics can be found. Because the main goal of this interview analysis is to organize coded words, emotions and behaviors into patterns, themes and their explanations, to process all the information in a useful and structured way (Richards & Richards, 1995). These codes are predefined, though during the coding sessions, several new sub-codes emerge. By coding all the interviews, an answer to the research question can be developed.

The first two interviews are pilot interviews to see how respondents react on certain questions, if these questions are understandable and if the questions being asked give a good representation of the underlying problems inside teams and the organization they work for. It is important to have pilot interviews to see if there are certain aspect not included, which can be of importance. Another important factor is to see how interviewees anticipate on these questions, if the interviewer has credibility and if there are certain things where the emphasize needs to lie upon.

In order to find out to how team agility can influence a successful ERP

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and asked in the semi-structure interview: clear understanding of strategic goals, commitment by top-management, excellent project management, organizational change management, a balanced implementation team, data accuracy, extensive education and training, focused performance measures and multi-site issues. With a cross-case analysis certain quotes are shown to help and understand if team agility can influence a successful ERP implementation process. Through this interview analysis the third sub-question can be answered and

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5. Data Analysis

In this research it is important to understand that the project is complex because of the different aspects. The area in which teams operate and how they communicate is important. Each team has a different scope with low- or high requirements. The project exist of

implementing an on-premise ERP system to a ‘large international organization in the maritime, energy, oil & gas' industry’. The company has merged in 2013, where different countries with different entities work on different software systems. To combine these

systems and work as one, the organization chose to implement Oracle EBS R12. To automate their finance systems in order to be more efficient and cut in costs. With the scope of this project: “To execute the core Finance processes and functions in an efficient manner. This solution will contribute to the integration, effective operation of the business and will create a platform for growth” (Deloitte Oracle, 2016).

5.1. Project Complexity

This implementation ‘PROJECT’ should have been completed in 2016 following the project plan of the 'Other Consultancy Firm', unfortunately due to the complexity of this project, it could not perform in the estimated time frame, as Respondent 8 state: “This project is quite big and also the duration is quite long. So about the duration, there is some uncertainty that we sense, that we know that the project is now being that it should end in 2019 and in 2019, but it should have already ended in 2016-2017, so setting the end date is quite uncertain”. Because of the complexity, the vendor Deloitte came into the picture to help the 'Other

Consultancy Firm' and the ‘large international organization in the maritime, energy, oil & gas' industry’. Eventually, the collaboration resulted in Deloitte starting to work with more

employees on the implementation processes due to the quality of the performed work. Following with a heavy competition with the 'Other Consultancy Firm', which made it

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somewhat difficult to implement certain aspects and tasks, due to multi-site issues and politics. Nevertheless the project is still ongoing only with an overweight of Deloitte consultants, from Norway, Spain and the Netherlands implementing the core processes.

As this project continuous, new difficulties develop along the way such as teams that contain numerous consultants from different firms constantly changing. Meaning that team mates need to adapt constantly to new employees that do not share the same knowledge, ideas, beliefs and work ethics, to make the project work efficiently. In terms of the requested work, it is difficult to implement everything to understand the politics of the ‘large

international organization in the maritime, energy, oil & gas' industry’. Major issues are shareholders that do not understand what an ERP implementation contains, wanting to have customizations that are time consuming because they change constantly. Respondent 10 categorizes the project as complex through the following statement: “The complexity comes with the different organizations types that they have in the ‘large international organization in the maritime, energy, oil & gas', it's all project based, that's the common item that they have. But the area's, the business areas. So their industry focus is that it is completely separate from each other. And that makes it then also difficult, because each of these

industries require a different set of needs in order to do their business. So finding a standard in all, in their core business processes, but also in the standard business applications is something that is quite difficult to achieve, being that it's, these are different organizations, so that's a challenge”.

The documents from Deloitte state that in the project management after Deloitte came into the picture, the PRINCE2 project management approach is taken with six phases and solutions. With a small adoption, the project lifecycle is presented in Figure 7.

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For Deloitte it is important to maintain high quality results through, delivering in a timely manner, understanding and mitigating the risks, obtaining visible results quickly while having an impact (Deloitte Consulting LLP, 2012, p. 73). This is done by the Enterprise Value Delivery (EVD) method that generates from industry lead practices conducted through previous projects all over the world. These industry lead practices is composed in the IndustryPrint and provide a repository of the best practice in business process models gathered from experiences from previous projects. This way it allows to share valuable experience and expertise with clients to provide consistent delivery, quality service and add measurable value (Deloitte Consulting LLP, 2012, p. 71-72).

Therefore, when Deloitte started this project in 2015, the project should have a new duration of two years. Due to the decision making of countries going live or not, how decisions are made are unclear and uncertain, there are politics involved that provide additional requirements, unclear decisions and hurdles, as Respondent 1 states: “The top management lacks trust and the teams feel a lot of frustration because they are not trusted and because things are so complex and nothing is straightforward”. Because this was not a fixed price assignment, no one felt the responsibility to take the lead as this is a variable cost project, resulting in a longer stay with more profit. Because the condition: duration exceeds its deadlines and gets extended throughout the project, this condition is met. While the scope is clear, to implement Oracle EBS R12, the scope changes constantly, due to

interdependencies, uncertainties and poor decision making, giving all these conditions 1-point. Customization and add-ons create a longer working time of implementing an ERP system (Jinno et al., 2017).

Differentiation of change in the requirements giving this condition 1-point. While organizational viewpoints, show that the organization is not ready to implement in a fast pace an ERP system, especially when employees are constantly fired, due to budget cuts making

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the social viewpoints complex. As for the technological viewpoints, when the organization chose in 2013 for Oracle EBS they expected to use it from 2016 with continuous support. Only because of the movement from on-premise to the Cloud, Oracle will provide support until 2025, making it only applicable for a couple of years.

With a result of a 10-point scale and the additional quotes about the complexity of the project, it is inevitably to conduct that this project has a complex nature, therefore, the boundary condition: complexity of a project is maintained.

5.2. Team agility

Because teamwork across different organizations becomes more important and can influence the success of an organization, team agility becomes an interesting concept.

In this project each team has the same scope (implementing the ERP system) only with a different team tasks. There are entities that have a lower revenue stream for example, which get less requirements, only a few local customizations. Because each team has a different role and different team composition on which they depend, this can result in a different team dynamics and way of working. The survey is sent out on the 8th of June and the

closed after the final respondent number 37 finished it on 18th of July 2018, resulting in a

100% response rate.

The results from the survey are presented hereafter and will give a descriptive analysis of the degree of team agility. Data is presented in a radar diagram and other results show how respondents answered their team composition. Informative quotes from the interview will also be presented to clarify or to amplify certain aspects. First the radar diagram of all the teams is given in Figure 8 to present in a quick overview the differences between the eight conditions across all teams. An important factor is that the radar diagram is difficult to analyze as certain lines are similar to other teams and there is not an overarching difference

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