Organizational Attributes and Implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning: A Case of Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kilifi County

Abstract

ERP technology has been embraced as an enterprise-wide package to integrate all necessary business functions into a single system with a shared database. It enhances decision making in business process and systemically harmonizes the activities of sales and marketing, manufacturing processes, operational management, product and service logistics, product purchasing, financial management, product development, and management of human resources. The study examined organizational attributes influencing implementation of enterprise resource planning in a medical research institute in Kenya. The study sought to explore the influence of top management support, implementation team, user support and resource availability on ERP implementation at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust research programme. The study used descriptive survey as research design. The target population was employees of KEMRI Wellcome Trust and Technobrain Kenya, the consulting firm. Data collection methods used were questionnaires. A preliminary study was carried out to test the rationality and reliability of the questionnaire. Considering the study was be descriptive in nature, data was analysed using descriptive statistics like frequencies and tables. Linear regression model was also used to validate if the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable is statistically important. The regression indicated that ERP implementation (the dependent variable) was highly influenced by top managements support, implementation team, user support and resource availability (the independent variable). Conclusively, the findings suggested that user support, resource availability, and top management had a central role in implementing effective ERP plans.