SANKAR, CHETAN S., KARL-HEINZ RAU. 2006. Implementation Strategies for SAP R/3 in a Multinational Organization: Lessons from a Real-World Case Study. Cybertech Publishing, Hershey, PA. 345 pp. $79.95.

This book is essentially an extended case study that involves a global company and provides instructive insight into the complex process of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation and various strategies for SAP R/3. ERP is an information system designed to integrate internal and external parts of the supply chain. Core processes include production planning and control, inventory management, purchasing, and distribution. It makes sense that a case study on this topic would encompass an entire book because an ERP implementation is extremely complicated. In addition, no two implementations are the same; therefore, a single strategy would not be practical for use by professionals or business people who are looking for guidance. The main example that the book uses is Robert Bosch GmbH's implementation of SAP R/3. The authors studied Bosch before, during, and after the implementation to analyze what the company did, why it did it, and what its expectations were versus the results achieved. In addition to examples from Bosch and other companies, the book provides an overview of the nature of multinational companies, ERP systems, and the concepts of change management.

Originally, only very large companies implemented ERP systems. Because the costs involved are great, the benefits outweigh the costs in very large-scale implementations only. In recent years, scaled-down versions of several ERP systems have been implemented; however, big...