ERP - Conclusions received on research conducted in PLIVA, ERP business innovations

H1: the results of research on BRP projects conducted in Croatian companies shows that the management of Croatian companies primarily have a reactive approach to process of business innovations – this hypothesis did not prove to be true in the case of the pharmaceutical company PLIVA, where a BRP project was conducted side-by-side with the implementation of the ERP system. The example of PLIVA shows that the successful implementation of the ERP system must be accompanied by an appropriate BRP project. From this example, it is possible to conclude that the final results are positive even when these are completely separate and independent projects, which are harmonized at the level of the project steering committee. In this respect, the PLIVA case is interesting as this is an international company which has dedicated much attention to employee training (and which has had standing cooperation with the Management Center Europe for many years) with the goal of achieving maximal flexibility and readiness for constant organizational changes (organizational change and change management training. This long standing cooperation has resulted in an internal training program which PLIVA employees carry out according to the methodologies of the Management Center Europe. If we compare the results of the research conducted in PLIVA with the hypotheses of research of the application of ERP systems in Croatia, the following conclusions, similarities and differences are obtained:
H2: the best supported components are Finance and Sales – does not agree with the research of ERP system application in Croatia, for even though product planning and management were implemented in the beginning, there were no significant problems and very good results ensued. This indicates that good project management and coordination with the BRP project gives a good final outcome;
H3: time of implementation is 3-4 years agrees with the research on ERP system application in Croatia (in continued research) as the project of implementing 4 phases of the SAP system in PLIVA also lasted that long. The length of implementation time of such a system can be critical as valuable business resources are engaged over the long term, frequently with an uncertain ending, as it was in a case of SAP system implementation in Nestlé USA (CIO, 2002). On the other hand, the phase by phase approach used in the case of PLIVA could be assumed as the critical factor of successful implementation.