Enterprise resource planning: ERP adoption by European midsize companies

ntil recently, the major ERP vendors (SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, and Baan) were mainly targeting the high end of the market (companies with more than 1,000 employees), but this market comes close to saturation.Many large companies have already adopted ERP systems and are planning the next step of how to use the installed ERP infrastructures as foundations for e-business [1,2].Most of the small-and medium-sized companies still have to make the decision to deploy ERP.The midsize market is an interesting market, for example, the number of midsize companies (50-1,000 employees) in Europe is estimated to exceed 100,000.Data from our research shows that with average annual IT budgets of more than $500,000, the total European midsize market for IT products and services surpasses a staggering $50 billion per year.This market as a whole is very attractive for the major ERP vendors.However, since the wave of adoption by midsize companies is in its early stages, little is known about developments and drivers that form the basis of ERP adoption decisions.The purpose of this article is to understand developments in ERP adoption within the European mid-market.Our empirical information is based on a large-scale European multicountry/multi-industry survey conducted in mid-1998.Based on the survey data, we will address various issues, such as: How did ERP penetration in the mid-market develop until 1998