Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a central role in the economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, making the selection of an appropriate ERP solution strategically important for productivity, resource control, and managerial decision-making. According to the European Commission, SMEs in Bosnia and Herzegovina account for 62.7% of total value added and 69.1% of total employment in the non-financial business economy, while OECD and European Commission reports indicate that the country’s digital transformation is progressing more slowly than the European Union average and that institutional support for business digitalization remains limited. In this context, ERP selection is not merely a technical issue, but also an organizational, financial, and developmental decision. This paper aims to develop an academically grounded decision-making framework for ERP selection in SMEs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with particular emphasis on the role of local implementers and on the criteria linking software functionality, project delivery, and the long-term sustainability of the system. The paper adopts a conceptual, review-based, and exploratory approach, combining a review of the relevant ERP literature, an analysis of institutional sources on SMEs and digital transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a documentary analysis of publicly available information on the domestic ERP market and its implementers. The findings suggest that, in the Bosnian context, functional coverage is a necessary but insufficient basis for rational ERP selection. Equally important are the quality of localization, implementers’ track records in similar industries, the availability of consulting support, training quality, transparent estimates of total cost of ownership, integration planning, data migration, and support for managerial reporting. On this basis, the paper proposes a decision model structured around five groups of criteria and outlines a conceptual AHP–TOPSIS framework for ranking ERP alternatives.
Faruk Unkić* (Sat,) studied this question.