A Comparative Study of Enterprise Resource Planning Vs Service Oriented Architecture in Small Medium Enterprises

Problem statement: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have such an important role in global success and become more complex over time. Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) follow large enterprises in using ERP systems while ERPs have not addressed the SME’s specific challenges such legacy systems as the main assets in SMEs that have not considered in ERP solutions as well as special situation requirements, budget and employee’s knowledge. Approach: This study demonstrates and discusses most important criteria of ERP-SME compatibility that extracted based on literature review and survey results. So that a clear view of ERP success in SMEs is presented. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is evaluated according to survey that has been done within number of SMEs to reveal its power in addressing SMEs’ challenges based on extracted criteria and systematically comparison. Results: The results of this study provide SMEs with valuable analysis that will guide them to make correct and effective changes in their current information systems. According to analyzing the SMEs criteria and ERP characteristics a set of points as guidelines of information systems implementation in SMEs were presented. Moreover, a systematically comparison of suitability of SOA on extracted criteria has been done. Conclusion: Evaluating results of the ERP systems that are based on object oriented versus SOA based systems will be useful to gradation the SMEs performance.