Abstract: Information systems designed and developed in house to fit a specific or small set of functions. It’s typically much smaller than enterprise system, however most of these developments also required more time, high cost to develop, not integrated, unclear customer requirements, and the most importantly working version is available during the implementation phase. On the other hand, many organizations rely on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to manage and process their entire business requirements, including a large size of applications, where these systems comply with various business needs, like expanding markets, increasing competition and technology developments. Most of ERP systems should have specific characteristics to achieve the developments of business processes. ERP systems work in dealing with customization off-the-shelf ERP package, or changing organization business process and people structure to suite with the package. This constitutes a handicap for both the research and practice communities. The present study outlines the main and specific characteristics distinct from other information systems and discusses the influence of various enterprise system characteristics such as standardization integration, flexibility, best practices and process-orientation. The aim of this study is to recapitulation of the main characteristics of ERP systems and concludes the impact of ERP key characteristics upon the performance of the system in a given organizational setting and focusing on functionality, procedures and business needs in organizations.

Keywords: Information System, Enterprise Resource Planning, Integration, Enterprise System, Software Packages.