Vendors of enterprise software continue to evolve their products and offer user organizations the latest functionality in new releases and upgrades. But this means companies are faced with the challenge of selecting features that add value, and trying to assess how implementation would impact them. Not every new function impacts all employees in the same way. Depending on the specific organizational structure, implementation will affect a varying number of users. And depending on a company's system landscape, implementation of new functions might require a range of IT activities and affect many processes.#R##N##R##N#The authors have developed a concept that uses an organization's system usage data to deliver decision support. Various aspects of the upgrade can be assessed with the aid of software tools (analyses and evaluations of new functionality) to determine relevancy, benefits, profitability, strategic goals and impact. In this article we will present a portion of this concept: A model that can assess how new functionality would impact a business, if implemented.
['Stefanie Rauff', 'Andreas Hufgard']
Reverse business innovations: the impact of ERP software upgrades on organizations