# The Impact of Information Systems Implementation in the Greek Manufacturing Enterprises
## 1 Introduction
Studies regarding the long-term benefits of the ICT adoption could prove to be crucial to convince the Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) owners to apply an ICT system if it is proven that the benefits can overcome the additional costs of implementation, training, etc. [3]. Several studies call for studies regarding the impact and benefits of ERP implementation [13; 22; 23] as well as the effects of Supply Chain Management (SCM) on a company's performance [13; 23]. They also call for a focus on investigating the effects of performance in specific business areas such as financial, marketing, customer-based performance, etc. [13]. Other studies call for further research regarding the impact of CRM in organizational performance and innovational capabilities of firms [24; 25]. The motivation behind the research presented in this paper was the need to assess the impact and contribution of IS implementation in several aspects of business performance in manufacturing companies in North Greece. In other words, the paper is trying to determine whether Greek and multinational companies which operate in Greece benefited--financially and non-financially--from IS adoption. The financial crisis that hit the country the last decade has affected--more or less--Greek and multinational enterprises. Beyond that, Greece is close to other countries with weaker economies and lower taxes. That fact has driven several companies to transfer their facilities and their administration to countries such as Bulgaria in order to gain more benefits from their operations. Under those circumstances, it was interesting for the authors of this paper to know if the companies facilitated in this area gained any benefits from using IS. Therefore, it is natural to pose the following broad hypothesis:  
**Hypothesis 1 (H1). **: _The manufacturing companies in North Greece that have adopted--at least one--IS have declared that the implementation of IS has had a positive impact in their business._  
The main objective of this research is to obtain answers--positive or negative--regarding the above general hypothesis and gain a better understanding of the relevant issues in North Greek industry, including Greek and multinational manufacturers that facilitate that area. That objective would be possible to be determined through an extensive questionnaire-based survey about IS in the manufacturing sector. A parallel objective is to contribute to the knowledge about the kind of influence IS adoption had in business performance in European industry. This empirical research contributes to filling the research gaps which were described previously by making the following contributions:  
* It empirically investigates which kind of IS or ISs Greek companies have adopted to conduct their business. * It determines whether IS implementation is considered profitable. * It also determines how (positively or negatively) several management departments were affected as the companies apply more innovative technologies such as ISs. * It also tries to determine the contribution (positive or negative) of IS adoption in several factors that were considered important. * It investigates whether there are factors that affect the impact and contribution of IS implementation in several aspects of business process. The companies were divided into two groups regarding the profitability of IS adoption: those with high profitability and those with medium profitability. The two groups were compared regarding the impact and contribution of IS adoption. The next section presents a literature review of the use of IS and the benefits that it might bring to businesses as well as presenting the research hypotheses. Section 3 describes the research methodology and the data collection process. Section 4 contains the research results, and the final section summarizes the main conclusions of this research along with our propositions for future research.