Imagine you are a member of the ERP project steering committee. Your task is to recommend a model or framework for the evaluation of the three ERP software vendors and their product. To do this you...

Introduction
As the global market for products and services are increasing day by day so is the competition getting intensified? So businesses around the globe are always in search of proficient method of working and securing a competitive edge over the others. They plan to do so by opting for effective employment and management of their resources. Now, to improve the performance of the business, organizations require to plan and control the utilization of resources so as to synchronize, manage and track utilization of all resources present in an enterprise. So here is where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) comes into picture. ERP is an integrated automatic enterprise system which computes the flow of information, material usage and financial resources among all the departments of an organization. This flow happens within an organization on a common database system. Now that the ERP enjoys such high level of respect and importance in the enterprise market, the competition has grown severe for the ERP solution from different vendors that they are now facing a virtual saturation levels. These solutions are simplified and cheaper for example ERP outsourcing or the ASP i.e. application service provision. Though ERP system offers many potential and stable benefits, a research has found that the SMEs generally fail to understand its utility and hence face consequential impacts on their functioning. Hence a need of evaluating and recognizing the best ERP system arises. This evaluation will then help SMEs to make a critical decision which will be then supported by a structured approach. Under this evaluation, various different ERP Vendor selection models have been introduced which helps a business choose the right ERP solution for their needs. Moreover Bernroider and Koch (2002) has stated that if an organza tin chooses a complex ERP solution and make “far-reaching” decisions based on this selected ERP system, the company may have unavoidable situations.
In this report, we’ll study the three software selecting models for ERP systems and their implementations.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In the recent years, a variety of methods have been proposed to the organizations to facilitate them to choose the right product for their needs. Winter and Leist (1998): they developed an information system which was based on the cost. Sistach and Pastor (2000): they came up with a method known as SHERPA. This method evaluates ERP systems in small and medium sized organizations. Then Lee and King (2000) combined processes of the Analytic Network with the model of 0–1 goal-programming so as to select an Information System project. Stefanou (2001): a general framework for evaluating an ERP software was proposed. Shakir and Hossain (2002): they offered six models for making decision regarding the ERP’s selection and implementation. Wei and Wang (2004): they said that by using a two-dimensional model and fuzzy set theory one can make decision regarding the selection of an ERP solutions.
In spite of all these proven solutions, still there is a lack in their implementation. Question arises Why? This is so because when one goes to use them, their usage often gets weakened by the loose mathematic models and also sometimes by the limited attributes available. These limited attributes make it difficult to make any decision regarding the selection of the ERP system. Problems arise there when these attributes are not even quant able and are complex to even understand by the managers of the organizations. So, we can conclude that there are many software selection models have been proposed to let the organization make the right decisions.
We will make use of the three of the most common ERP selection models:
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) - It is a method which is applied in the situations where one decision alternative has to be chose from several other decision alternatives. It is based on multiple decisions. It is highly flexible in nature and applicable in varied situations and functions. Saaty (1995) proposes AHP as the system which gives a direction of determining priority to be given to the set of alternatives and attribute’s relative importance in decision making problem. This problem is multi-criteria in nature.
Before moving forward, let’s see how the utilization of AHP in ERP evaluation tasks has been studied previously. Teltumbde (2000) proposed a framework based on the Nominal Group Technique and AHP to select an ERP. Alarcon (2004) proposed the usage of AHP for selecting ERP system in large companies in Venezuela. These studies show that AHP aligns the evaluation process of ERP with the corporate’s strategies and...