The use of experts panels in ERP cost estimation research

Abstract

This paper is an effort towards illustrating the use of expert panel (EP) as a mean of eliciting knowledge from a group of enterprise resource planning (ERP) experts as an exploratory research. The development of a cost estimation model (CEM) for ERP adoptions is very crucial for research and practice, and that was the main reason behind the willingness of experts to participate in this research. The use of EP was very beneficial as it involved various data collection and visualisation techniques, as well as data validation and confirmation. Beside its advantages, one of the main motives for using a group technique is that it is difficult to find a representative sample for a casual survey method, as ERP experts and consultants are rare to find, especially in the scope of SMEs’ ERP implementations. It is worth noting that the panel reached consensus regarding the results of the EP. The experts modified and enhanced the initial cost drivers (CD) list largely, as they added, modified, merged and split different costs drivers. In addition, the experts added CF (sub-factors) that could influence or affect each cost driver. Moreover, they ranked the CD according to their weight on total costs. All of this helped the authors to better understand relationships among various CF.This paper is an effort towards illustrating the use of expert panel (EP) as a mean of eliciting knowledge from a group of enterprise resource planning (ERP) experts as an exploratory research. The development of a cost estimation model (CEM) for ERP adoptions is very crucial for research and practice, and that was the main reason behind the willingness of experts to participate in this research. The use of EP was very beneficial as it involved various data collection and visualisation techniques, as well as data validation and confirmation. Beside its advantages, one of the main motives for using a group technique is that it is difficult to find a representative sample for a casual survey method, as ERP experts and consultants are rare to find, especially in the scope of SMEs’ ERP implementations. It is worth noting that the panel reached consensus regarding the results of the EP. The experts modified and enhanced the initial cost drivers (CD) list largely, as they added, modified, merged and split different costs drivers. In addition, the experts added CF (sub-factors) that could influence or affect each cost driver. Moreover, they ranked the CD according to their weight on total costs. All of this helped the authors to better understand relationships among various CF.