IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES FOR ERP ADAPTATION IN MALAYSIAN SME AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

摘要

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are swiftly emerging. For SMEs to be competitive and survive in this challenging time, it is innovative and creative to contract out simple tasks and focus on complex activities. SMEs in Malaysia play a dynamic and active role in inspiring entrepreneurship, nurturing economic activities, and creating job opportunities. The government of Malaysia introduced the Small and Medium Industries Development Corporation (SMIDEC) to help SMEs develop and enhance their services by providing training and support. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is well-known business process management software which allows businesses to integrate various automated mode processes related to technology, financial, services, and human resources. In Malaysia, ERP adaptation in SMEs shows quite a slow-moving pace, as there are issues to be addressed, and usually, ERP is required to be customized to fit with the SMEs' operation. Unfortunately for Agricultural SMEs in Malaysia, this sector seems to be unheeded by business IT firms since various specifications were not well-matched with the standard operating procedure (SOP), making the deliberation of the ERP system even perilous. This research aimed to identify the contributing factors to ERP adaptation failure in SMEs of the Malaysia Agriculture sector using mixed models. Firstly, a list of questions was sent to Agro companies' employees to get feedback on their existing ERP systems. Commonly, these questions asked in the initial stage of system evaluation for ERPs. Results were gathered and translated to rating tables and comments. The ratings and suggestions were then established and presented to three experts who are top-level managers of three different top agro companies in Malaysia, which practice various types of ERP systems. Based on the discussion with the experts, six implementation strategies were proposed and concluded for the purpose to reduce the risk in the ERP adaptation for the Malaysian SME Agriculture Industry. These implementation strategies will assist the SMEs in the Agriculture Industry in ensuring the ERP system adaptation process's efficiency and effectiveness.