Why is top management commitment necessary for the success of ERP?
ERP will ultimately affect everyone in the organisation. An ERP implementation represents a major organisational intervention. The process view of ERP would remove many of the “kingdoms” in the organisation. This would lead to a shift in power centres; naturally ERP represents a major change. Managing change of such high order cannot be done without top management commitment. ERP exercise is also a major exercise and can cost anyway from several lakhs to several crores of rupees. Such large resource requirements also necessitate commitment from top management. Last, but not the least, ERP implementation is a long process, generally running into several months. Keeping an activity alive for such long duration would be nearly impossible without top management commitment.