Since the 1990s, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has been deployed in private sector organizations, but adoption of ERP by the public sector has lagged (Harris, 2004). Until the late 1990s, most public sector organizations relied on disparate commercially available and internally developed applications with limited or no direct integration (Byrne, 2011). Such applications were expensive to maintain and very limited in terms of flexibility, reporting and analysis capability. Faced with the challenge of solving the Y2K problem in their existing systems, most have turned to ERP. The late 1990s saw a wave of public sector ERP implementations, driven more by the need to replace systems with Y2K compliance issues rather than by process improvement. profession (Kavanagh and Miranda, 2005). However, many of the early ERP implementations in the public sector failed to achieve these goals. desired goals and resulted in negative press reports such as cost and schedule overruns, payroll issues and financial reporting problems. After the ERP wave of 2000, public sector ERP enthusiasts tended to take a more risk-averse approach and began to focus away from replacing legacy systems and more towards ROI expected (Harris, 2004). This process has forced ERP vendors to reevaluate their software and service offerings and develop public sector specific features or modules for their solutions instead of trying to tailor their private sector oriented product offerings to the public sector. SAP, for example, has introduced into its product line several functional modules such as funds management, grant management, budgeting and position control, necessary for public sector customers. By 2005, the public sector ERP market had matured and seven...... middle of paper projects..." (p. 1). In addition to the above, the selection of ERP consultants, selecting an ERP vendor and selecting suitable employees for the implementation team may also be difficult due to influences, union activities, etc. The business re-engineering process may also be affected due to cultures. organizational, employee attitudes and less involvement of top management At present, public sector organizations In Sri Lanka, they invest large sums of money from their revenues as well as government allocations for the. IT related developments Some of them have successfully implemented ERP solutions and most of them are considering or already implementing ERP solutions in their organizations. 'To illuminate how to implement ERP in public sector organizations in Sri Lanka by identifying critical success factors in Sri Lankan context.