Multivariate methods in enterprise system implementation, risk management and change management

This work is a first step towards the application of multivariate methods in risk management and change management in Enterprise System Implementation (ESI). ESI is characterised by concentrated efforts to integrate an IT system. Such projects typically experience unplanned problems and events, which may lead to major restructuring of the process. In this work, we rely on ESI theory developed by the Better Enterprise SysTem (BEST) project and more conventional risk management methodology. Both change management and risk management consist of data collection and data analysis. We will show that the data structures of both efforts are similar so that similar data analysis techniques are applicable. In fact one can consider change management as a special case of risk management. This paper focuses on the application of multivariate methods in comparing risk profiles and readiness assessments at various stages of an ESI project. The techniques are correspondence analysis and partial order mapping, which help to characterise and compare ESI readiness across different parts of a company and compare risk profiles of different ESI components.