Alignment of global business operations with ERP systems capabilities for improved business performance

The number of organizations operating on a global scale is continuously increasing in recent years to exploit business opportunities in the global arena. At the same time, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are being increasingly adopted to support global businesses. However, how well these systems are aligned with business operations of global businesses is not very well established. Thus, research on the alignment of global business operations with ERP systems capabilities is imminent. This paper presents an alignment model to address this research gap. The model predicts that if ERP systems capabilities are effectively aligned with global business operations, improved business performance outcomes will be achieved. Control variables such as organization size and globalization history will have some influence on performance as well. This paper makes an original contribution to information system (IS) research, extending the information technology (IT) alignment concepts to a specific IS application (ERP system) in the global business arena.