The most cited article in the Journal of Operations Management is Hendricks et al (2007) “The impact of enterprise systems on corporate performance: A study of ERP, SCM, and CRM system implemenation” [vol. 25, issue 1, 65-82]. Basically the article examines the effect of implementing these three different systems on the performance of the firm, as measured by a firm’s long-term share price performance and profitability measures such as return on assets and return on sales.
Despite ERP’s ‘bad press’ (see earlier blogs) it seems that this has led to improved profitability (but not improved share price), especially amongst early adopters. The implementation of SCM is reported as having a positive effect on all performance measures, whereas there appears to be no link between CRM implementation and firm performance. Despite the heavy investement cost in these different systems, and related problems of implementation, there was no evidence that any of them had a negative impact in performance.
Jones and Robinson 