“Actionable” critical success factors for supply chain information system implementations

Abstract

Implementing a supply chain information system (SCIS) incurs organizational and technical complexities. For managing these complexities, information system researchers have identified generic critical success factors. However, CSFs are abstract and, therefore, difficult to use in practice. To maximize the chances of successfully implementing a SCIS in the food industry, we aim to identify “actions” linked to CSFs. We, consequently, investigated four German pork supply chains that implemented a SCIS. Fourteen critical success factors were made “actionable”; most actions were identified for the CSFs “manage change and deliver training” and “select standards, vendor, and software package”, indicating their relative importance.