1. Review of the topic
5.3 Respondent demographics
The target population of the research were those individuals with ERP project experience at a South African organisation. The 166 respondents gave feedback on a total of eleven demographic questions which can be divided into gender, ERP project experience, and work experience. The remaining 7 demographic questions specifically related to the project that was the subject of the survey, and were comprised of ERP project position held, the industry of the client, the city in which the project work was performed in, project duration, project complexity, project urgency, project cost, and organisational structure of the client.
There was a large difference noted in the sample of respondents with females only representing under a third of all respondents. Three options were given to the respondent to specify their gender, with the third option being prefer not to say. The were no responses that indicated anything other than male or female, meaning that almost 70% of the sample was male.
Figure 3. Gender diversity breakdown
29,7%
70,3%
Gender of Respondents
Female Male
53 To ascertain how experienced respondents were in terms of years employed, over 77% of respondents indicated that they had over 5 years of work experience. The largest demographic for this section was 5 to 10 years of work experience, with 67 of the respondents selecting this option.
Figure 4. Respondent work experience
In order to gage the amount of experience the respondents had with ERP software projects, they were asked to choose from a range of options which showed their years of experience with ERP projects. Of the 166 respondents, 39% had ERP experience of between 5 and 10 years, with the next biggest portion of respondents being 26% of them having between 10 and 20 years of ERP project experience. Overall, around 70% (118 individuals) of the respondents indicated that they had over 5 years of experience with ERP projects.
37,3%
6,5%
40,2%
16,0%
Work Experience (in years)
10 to 20 years 2 to 5 years 5 to 10 years Over 20 years
54 Figure 5. Respondent ERP project experience
With regards to the respondent’s demographics specific to the ERP project of which the respondents were being questioned on, the results begin with the position that the respondent held whilst apart of the ERP project. The largest component of this demographic came from the 39% of respondents whom are ERP professionals and consultants, and therefore experts of the ERP software. The next largest response came from those 27% of the respondents who were the project managers on the ERP project. Therefore, ERP professionals and project managers together make up over 65% of the total respondents (107 individuals).
7,1%
26,0%
18,9%
39,1%
3,6% 5,3%
ERP Project Experience (in years)
1 to 2 years 10 to 20 years 2 to 5 years 5 to 10 years Less than 1 year over 20 years
55 Figure 6. Respondent's project role
The industries of the clients at which the ERP projects were executed at is shown in table 7 below. There were 12 different industry options available for the respondent to select on the survey. The two industries with the most representation was that of the financial services (20%) and the wholesale or retail trade (20%) industries (34 individuals in each instance).
There was the option for the respondent to select other as the industry may not had been listed, and only 2 percent of the respondents selected this option.
56 Table 6
Sector / industry of client
Answer Options Response % Count
Agriculture 1,78% 2
Construction or Engineering 8,88% 15
Financial Services 20,12% 34
Government or Municipal Services 6,51% 11
Information & Communications Technology 15,98% 27
Manufacturing 15,38% 25
Mining or Energy Production 4,73% 8
Other 2,37% 3
Security 0,59% 1
Services 0,59% 1
Tourism 2,96% 4
Wholesale or Retail Trade 20,12% 34
100% 165
The next categorical question was used to segment the respondents in terms of in which city within South Africa the majority of the work was performed. It was no surprise that the overwhelming majority (72%) of the respondent indicted Johannesburg as their answer as it is the home base of the researcher, and is widely considered as the financial capital of South Africa. The other city selected and listed here in order of most to least selected were Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, and Durban.
Figure 7. City where project executed
13,0%
1,8%
72,2%
2,4%
10,7%
City in which the Majority of the Project Work were Performed:
Cape Town Durban Johannesburg Port Elizabeth Pretoria
57 Respondents were asked to indicate what the time duration, from start to finish, was of the ERP project in question. 95 respondents indicated that the duration of their project was between 1 and 2 years.
Figure 8. Project duration
The next 2 categorical questions were designed to ascertain from the respondents what the level of complexity and urgency was with regards to the ERP project in question. In both instances, only 1,2% of the respondents indicated that the project was of low complexity and urgency. Over half of the responses (51,2%) show that the project was of high complexity, with almost 70% indicating that the projects were only of medium urgency. It can then be said that for this sample, ERP projects are of medium to high complexity, but only of medium urgency in general.
57,1%
28,6%
11,3% 3,0%
Duration of the Project
1 to 2 years
6 months to less than 1 year Over 2 years
Under 6 months
58 Figure 9. Level of project complexity
Figure 10. Urgency of ERP project
51,2%
1,2%
47,6%
Level of Project Complexity
High Low Medium
29,2%
1,2%
69,6%
Urgency of Last Project
High Low Medium
59 Respondents were also asked to indicate what the rough cost was of the ERP project in question. It can be said that the ERP projects in this sample are quite costly as, when specific responses are combined, 70% of the respondents indicated that the value of these ERP projects were R5 million.
Figure 11. Cost of ERP project
The final categorical question was used to understand what type of organisational structure was adopted by the client at which the ERP project was executed. Over half of the respondents (55%) indicated that the adopted organisational structure was a mixture of a functional organisation (a hierarchical organization structure wherein people are grouped as per their area of specialization) and a projectized organisation (organizations arrange their activities into programs or portfolios and implement them through projects). Only 3.6% of the respondents (6 individuals) claimed that the organisation was solely of a projectized structure.
11,8%
17,8%
22,5%
26,0%
21,9%
Value of Last Project
R1 million to R3 million R3million to R5 million R5 million to R8 million R8 million to R12 million over R12 million
60 Figure 12. Client organisational structure