Usage analysis in sap erp-systems for measurement of business maturity ? exemplified in purchasing

In business IT, empirical data is very rarely in the form of corporate usage data from system analyses. This article is based on 105 ERP-systems that have been analyzed in-depth, and whose data deliver empirical conclusions about usage and the level of maturity of business processes, and quantify the primary types of activities users are involved in. The approach is applied by comparing two groups in the database: “Automotive Industry” and “Non-Automotive Industry”. Here we focus on identifying significant differences in the efficient use of business processes in purchasing between the groups. These efficiency indicators where deviated from most accepted purchasing maturity models. The research question is to validate the high evaluation of the Automotive Industry in those models against the reality we can find in the ERP-System. The usage data was gathered from usage analyses of SAP systems via RBE Plus, a reverse business engineering tool. It is based on the activities of more than 270,000 users in organizations in Europe and the USA. The findings offer enterprises a standard of comparison and reveal potential for improvement in sub-processes.