Chapter 10: Enterprise Resource Planning: A Tool for Understanding Hidden Costs and Performance?¹

In their search for improvement, companies have heavily resorted to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) since the end of the 1990s. The main objective was primarily aimed at the function’s partitioning in favor of a broader organization process approach. The study, deployment and implementation of this type of tool, however, generated disruptions and in-depth challenges in companies, both in terms of existing management methods and practices. The failures, unfortunately, were many. The chapter is focused on the factors that led to these difficulties and the underlying tensions faced by companies at a literal impasse between their information system and needed actions to get them out of these situations.