Spreadsheets in an ERP environment: not what the doctor ordered
This addresses a practical problem for ERP users and organizations by investigating why spreadsheets are preferred over built-in reporting tools, though it appears incremental as it focuses on measuring and understanding existing practices.
The research aims to measure the extent of spreadsheet usage in ERP environments and identify factors that facilitate this behavior, as users often export data from ERP systems to spreadsheets for manipulation and reporting.
Modern ERP systems contain flexible report generators but the tendency exists for users to export data to spreadsheets for manipulation, reporting and decision making. A purported reason for this is that some users are more familiar with personal reporting tools (spreadsheets) as opposed to enterprise reporting tools. The author's doctoral research intends to measure the extent of spreadsheet usage in ERP environments and to determine which factors facilitate this.