Technical and management perceptions of enterprise information system importance, implementation and benefits

This paper compares information systems (IS) integration in high-tech organizations from the information technology (IT) and general management perspectives. All the organizations studied have experience of integrated Enterprise Resource Planning systems, and some with their extension to Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management systems. The operational scope of the sample systems, and senior IT and general management perceptions of the importance of their functions, benefits and implementation success factors, obtained by qualitative interviews with 49 senior managers and a quantitative survey of 219 high-tech companies, are described and compared. Although the opinions expressed indicate some mutual hostility, IT and general management perceptions of IS implementation were very similar. IT managements overall importance assessments of business functions were more strongly correlated with their overall level of implementation, and they tended to rate system benefits and system reliability more highly. The significance of these findings is discussed and some suggestions for further investigation, placing them in a wider context, are made. Arguably, the similarities found are more important than the differences.