A) In the case study example aspects of BI have been employed by Dow Corning Corp when they integrated their global business processes by initiating a basic ERP backbone, SAP. Two business intelligence methods that are being employed by Dow Corning are Business Information Warehouse and Strategic Enterprise Management Tools, both offered by SAP. The first, Business Information Warehouse is a ‘Data Warehouse’, which is a “repository of known facts and related data…” which is used to make management decisions (Sumner 2005 p. 143). All the data are fetched from external data sources and operational data sources. The second, Strategic Enterprise Management Tools will be used for data mining which involves “…the analysis of large quantities of data …” (Sumner 2005 p. 143). Data mining will allow Dow Corning to use its data warehouse to consolidate financial reporting, generate forecasting, evaluate corporate performance and manage risk (SAP 2009).

B) Research being faced by this large organization in regards to BI would be conquering a strong accomplishment plan. Important lesson they had learned was software evaluation phase with all the details gone through about the specific business report, they would not have been able to illustrate on the understanding on the entire development team, which helped them to dream of future potential for BI in the post-ERP implementation phase.

            The main challenge for a large organization like Dow Corning’s is data fetching and data integrity. “A data warehouse will not work if information is missing, inconsistent, or inaccurate” (Sumner 2005 p. 143). All data of the warehouse needs to be up-to-date, with proper fragmentation of data and ensuring about data integrity, so that data mining process can be began.

C) It would be beneficial for Dow Corning to use shared service approach using an ASP because of its 55 to 60% or more business is running outside the U.S. To get the services regarding infrastructure, support over the web, and application, use of shared service net sourcing is best example. However, there are certain risks involved. Some main involve from possible customers include, service and business stability, security and reliability (Sumner 2005). Risk may arise from contracts, risks may occur during rearrangement of the ERP system.

Alternatively, shared services using ASP offer cost effectiveness, step up application expansion and access to the most modern technology and support. Dow Corning is an international company and has various sites around the world, with the suitable precautions in use, Dow Corning Corp could be advantage to a great extent from the ease that shared services using ASP provides.

References

Sumner, M 2005, Enterprise Resource Planning, Pearson Education, Upp Saddle River, New Jersey

Reflections

1. What was the most difficult assessment you completed so far in COIS12073 this term?

The most difficult assessment I have completed in this course is Assignment 3 – up gradation of ERP and recommendation of ERP to multinational company.

 2.What was difficult about it and how would you suggest it could be improved?

Difficult part about this assignment was to get information about Cisco, and its current ERP status and other relevant information. Every report possesses different ERP reports, so it was difficult part. I would suggest, if we use some small company or international company where all details are provided or material, information to that is supplied to us then it would be easy for any of us. Though, after spending some time it was really interesting to get information about international company.

3.If you could provide three pieces of advice to a student who will be doing this course next term what would they be?

• Analysis and getting information about this case study takes maximum time, so start as early as possible.
• Make sure you make notes, whatever you learn in lectures, which will be use in case study and it will also easy to understand case study.
• And you have to make your decision regarding recommendation, on the basis of that you have find resources for each of your arguments.

4.How will you be able to use this knowledge/these skills in your future career?

This course has given massive information regarding Enterprise Resource and Planning (ERP). It will be useful as in many ways in my future. After finishing this course, it will assist me to overcome certain issues related to ERP and its implementation. Tutor for this course is very helpful and friendly in nature. It was really easy to understand this course in his viewpoint. I would like to thank tutor for this course and course coordinator as well for teaching me one of best course in and for today multi-organizational world.

Q3. What external factors (non-implementation project related) could affect how and when an ERP goes live?  

When ERP goes live, there are numerous external factors affects. One of these is Staff turnover and resignation of key project staff. Losing staff who are more likely involved with total ERP project, would be like losing best knowledge what we have. Because of this, there could be delay in implementation of ERP; none of our staff are fully trained for ERP.

Some other external factors include customers, suppliers and the government. None of these bodies will prohibit so that the company can have a better ERP system transition. Consequently certain events raised by these bodies will delay the ongoing of an ERP system. Such an event may be a change in a rule by the government which wasn’t initially planned for and so time will need to be made to incorporate this into the final implementation product.

Most helpful tip for giving a good presentation

Tip regarding giving best presentation was provided by Dan Bobinski which was “Wrap up with a Good Review” (Bobinski 2003). This tip outlined that, presentation should be ended with all the important points covered and not introducing any new material. But obvious that at least one person will phase out during a presentation and there are chances of missing important information no matter how long or short a presentation is. Providing a wrap up beginning with phrases such as “In conclusion” or “as I wrap things up”, which will get an audience’s attention”, will allow any missed information to be relayed or reinforced into the memories of the audience. Doing so, attempt of successful presentation can be made.

References:-

Bobinski, D. 30 sep 2003, five tips for giving powerful presentations,Workplace Excellence, viewed 21 September 2009, http://www.management-issues.com/2006/5/25/opinion/five-tips-for-giving-powerful-presentations.asp

The simple answer to this is yes it does make sense for a non-manufacturing company to adopt an ERP system. All company’s including manufacturing company or non-manufacturing company deals with financial or accounting matters, so for any company, to take advantage from ERP, it would make sense to implement ERP. With one common database, that integrates all the departmental areas with ideal system setup. “This concept eliminates paperwork and bottlenecks associated with non-integrated data” (Sumner 2005).

To keep track of stock levels, calculating safety stock levels, cost management, lead time determining, quality control, work flows, manufacturing systems has been used. MRP’s have integrated operational and management control processes and has implemented best practices. This is the basic goals of ERP’s to integrate organizational systems and implementing best practices. So from this viewpoint, yes manufacturing systems can be seen as being the basis for all ERP systems.

The Production Planning and Materials Management Modules within ERP have interfaces to other modules, including Human Resources, Sales and Distribution, and Financial Accounting. Describe these interfaces:

What information is shared with Production Planning and Materials Management from the following modules?

 Human Resources:

Training,

Employee Details,

Payroll,

Organizational hierarchy

Sales and Distributions:

Forecasted sales,

Shipments,

Sales details,

Current sales figures

Financial Accounting:

Assets Information,

Cash Management,

General Ledger,

Accounts Payable,

Accounts Receivable.

References

 Sumner, M. 2005, Enterprise Resource Planning, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

When users are reluctant to get involved with phase 2, which is the phase of defining the solution, there are many issues, problems and risks that can arise. One of the main issues is system or the person behind the system, selecting those can be the main issue if system fails to work. The organization has to spend countless time and money to upgrade/change the already implemented system/module. This is both a long and short term issue as it will create user dissatisfaction and wasted time and money in the long run.

This phase include many important aspect

1.         Make Key Strategic Choices

2.         Develop Program Design Framework

3.         Establish Program Schedule

4.         Develop Project Budget

5.         Find Project Resources and Staff

6.         Stakeholder Involvement

Lozinsky explains prototyping as the stage where “The project team will use data and actual company procedures, gather together the key users, and literally try to run the software to produce the desired results” (Lozinsky 1998, pg. 197). This issue will create chaos once the system goes live, as time and money will be wasted working through or around any errors. This kind of issues can be fixed if we come to know at right moment of time. In all, reluctant participants can result into many issues, problems and risks, which can present both short and long term consequences. These kinds of issues can avoid or at least minimized if users are actively participate. Most of this issue will waste company’s financial status as well as reduced productivity, efficiency and profitability.

References

 Lozinsky, S. 1998, Enterprise-Wide Software Solutions: Integration Strategies and Practices, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts

Introduction: -

ERP system backgrounds and current ERP system.

Issues or problem with ERP

New ERP system and its Solution

Executive Summary:- 

Outline the benefits for the company, when and how.

Advantages and Disadvantages of ERP.

Give some recommendation.

One cannot make decision or selection of adopting ERP without understanding the problem. A major reason for this is there are so much of risks involved with ERP adoption which arise even when the problem is fully understood. As Sumner states “ERP projects often represent the single largest investment in an information system for many companies and, in many cases the largest single investment in any corporate-wide project. The magnitude and complexity of these projects poses considerable risk…” (2005). Failure of resource occurs when there are conflicts between staff, wastage of time and project scope due to insufficient data. Another risk is user contact failure which occurs when there is an inability to communicate with the user. Technology is also main constraint at some point, because if by chance there is some problem occurs on software or hardware, then ERP would fail.

References

Lozinsky, S. 1998, Enterprise-Wide Software Solutions: Integration Strategies and Practices, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts

Sumner, M. 2005, Enterprising Resource Planning, 1^st ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

Following on from the previous week provide a rough skeleton of what you are going to put in your conclusions and recommendations.

Conclusions

• Implementing an ERP is the best way for CISCO to move forward in today’s competitive environment.
• Critical success factors in relation to CISCO’s position will be restated.
• It will be made clear why choosing not to go ahead with implementing a new ERP is the wrong decision.
• What are the expected outcomes of implementing a new ERP at CISCO will be listed.
• A highlight of the advantages of implementing an ERP in regards to CISCO strategic direction will be presented.

Recommendations

• That the ERP should be implemented now in the current social and economic environment.
• What type of ERP adoption will be recommended i.e. Vanilla, best of Breed etc,
• What CISCO can do if they still don’t want to go ahead with ERP implementation now?
• Things to consider, i.e. outsourcing, training or key personnel and other project management planning and considerations that should be looked at.

Provide examples of events that you think may trigger alterations in a work plan. What would the consequences of such events be?

 According to Lozinsky, work plans are formulated and underpinned by assumptions.   There are certain events that may trigger alterations in a work plan are: -

• Technical failure of system
• Incompetence of staff
• Organizational failure
• Timelines not being met
• Unexpected technical issues with software and hardware
• Failure of the software

The factors from such events can lead to loss of business, lack of assurance in the proposed system, procedure, negative impact on the perception of the company and downfall of share price and failure of the project. Several other consequences of such events will be: -

• Insufficient arrangement
• Insufficient assets or information  
• Lack of guidance about system or ERP or business processes 
• Deprived communication
• Poor project management
• Failure to control the project
• Inaccurate Staff assigned for different tasks
• Lack of commitment from significant areas such as upper management
• Failure to resolve inconvenience in a appropriate method

Above mentioned events may trigger alteration in work plan, though some times all the mentioned events are not work but under certain circumstances this may lead as well.

Reference:  -

Sumner, M 2005, Enterprise resource planning, 1st edn, Pearson Prentice Hall,

Saddle River.

What advantages would an ERP provide to Wingate Electric? What other options does Wingate Electric have instead of adopting an ERP?

As per case study, it is state that Wingate Electric, has been in business since 100 years, so they have massive customer relation, and they are reputed company in market.

There will be several advantages of implementing ERP in their business, first of all they data will be integrated, as in case study its given that, they are using MIS system at Wingate Electric and which is home-grown application and its all fragmented by the time. And it’s difficult to maintain and their database is not rationale.

So according to me after reading this case study I have come to conclusion that, it is good decision to adopt ERP for Wingate Electric now. Their competitors has already implemented web-based ERP, and even many customers of Wingate Electric also want that they should adopt this web-based order processing system. According to case study, even Wingate is also interested in acquiring an ERP system, which will also supports in their financial and accounting functions. And afterwards company can add certain modules of ERP to increase their processing time and productivity.

Implementing ERP will result into good customer feedback, customer relationship will improve, and this will also result into increase in sale for business. And above all Wingate Electric will not loose it present customers and they will get integrated data and information.

After reading this case study, I don’t think that Wingate Electric have any other option apart from adopting ERP system for them.

Reference : –

Sumner, M 2005, Enterprise resource planning, 1st edn, Pearson Prentice Hall, Saddle River.

If an organisation has business processes that do not match any commercially available ERP, should the organisation adopt an ERP? Provide factors for and against and suggest other possible considerations that would factor in your reasoning.

 If there is such condition arise, for organization, whose business processes doesn’t match any commercially available ERP then there are two possible factors, first one is organization should adopt ERP, but they should get ready to do some changes in their business processes and certain other major factors. Re-engineering of business processes is the one way to adopt ERP. If the organization doesn’t have any problem with this then according to ERP they can get variance in their profit margin.

Other factor is, customizing ERP according to organizations needs. But this is not an easy task for any organization to deal with. Customizing ERP doesn’t work in all case. There are several issues that can lead for fail in Implementation of ERP.

For example: company is implementing ERP, which is totally different from its business processes. And company doesn’t bother to change its business processes according to ERP then this will result in fail of ERP implementation and company will face major problem as well.

So any company adopting ERP, which is not suitable for its business processes then, there are very less ways of making it successful.

• Business Processes Management
• Data integration
• Business processes re-engineering
• Interviewing
• Cost analysis
• Functional hierarchy charts

Critical Success factors involved in implementing ERP are: –

• Commitment of top management
• Commitment of project management
• Organizational change management
• Effective implementation team
• Data integration with accuracy
• Education and training.

Reference: -

Sumner, M 2005, Enterprise resource planning, 1st edn, Pearson Prentice Hall,

Saddle River.

Stuff-Up.Org (fictitious organisation at the time or writing) has an ailing set of in-house developed legacy systems (if you don’t know what a legacy system is – look up the term on the web). It has been decided that the IT department will be tasked to investigate the possibility of adopting an ES. If they recommend ES adoption, then it has also been decided that they will be tasked with evaluating products and recommending a product to the CEO. What might be wrong with this situation? What problems do you see arising?

As it is stated above that, IT department will be tasked to investigate the possibility of adopting as Enterprise system, there has been always good sign and bad sign for all the decision made by bunch of people. Though people are most experienced in their field but problem may arise in any unexpected situation.  In this case if we see, then IT people will think according to their needs and specification, rather then thinking of the entire department working in organization.

So if they evaluate any product and recommend to CEO, then CEO might not approve that evaluation because that doesn’t meet certain requirements of the organization.  

For example: -

Before re-engineering, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was facing problem of decentralized purchasing let to a loss of corporate-wide discounts, this problem was faced by purchase department as in purchasing Process. After implementation of proper ES, re-engineering was done and there was central negotiation of corporate degree of discounts and there was a use of collective database of negotiated prices were accepted.

This led to cost saving through the use of centrally negotiated discounts for Hewlett-Packard (HP).

So adoption of ES, is major problem for any big organization, if that has not be re-engineered centrally and there are so many people who is involved in taking fruitful decisions.  This will result into big loss for company and they could loose their present market and customers as well. And at the end company will end up in bankruptcy.       

Reference: - 

Sumner, M 2005, Enterprise resource planning, 1st edn, Pearson Prentice Hall,

Saddle River.

Ans: – ERP: – Enterprise Resource Planning System,

• Is the system which is used to get certain amount of profit in business process management and fresh business enterprises as well!  Though chances of getting profit in business after implementing ERP is not 100%, but many cases has came across, with big venture, they have said in their blog or journal article that after implementing ERP they gained massive profit margin in their respective business.

However, many organisations have their own business processes and often do not want to change. If an organisation is unwilling to change its business processes, can it gain any value from an ERP?

• Today many organization started developing their own ERP them, if we take look in past few years then will come to know that, there are many benefits and risk after implementing own ERP for the organization.
• Even we saw that many organizations have their own business process and they don’t want to change those processes for any condition. In this case many of the big organizations have to face some negative feedback and negative result in their profit as well. But few organizations got successful rate or change in their profit even after not changing their business processes.
• As we discussed in Module 1, ERP success depends of various factors including business processes re-engineering and with minimum customization.
• Implementing ERP in the organization doesn’t guarantee benefits for the organizations.
• There are several other factors along with business processes and customization, which can lead organization in wrong direction if we don’t take serious steps towards it.

How could this be achieved? What are the risks? 

• As we discussed above, this can be achieved by keeping certain points in mind such as:-  
  • Business Processes re-engineering
  • Maintenance Cost
  • Ongoing Support
  • Improvement of business processes
  • Loss of business effectiveness
  • Those are certain risk involved.

Que 2 Week 1

Ans: -

In recent times, there has been a trend away from total (or vanilla) ERP implementations towards ‘best of breed’ systems. Research this trend and describe how it differs from standard ERP implementations.

• As we see, that many organizations came with other alternative sketch and options which has its own value as well as advantages and disadvantages.
• Trend of “vanilla” ERP implementation is the complete vendor ERP system, which is really costly and that also consume time to implement it and along with this it has some other benefits as well such as complete integration and re-engineering business processes.
• This ERP system, are varies according to different project, if we take an example of accounting and financial then ERP for that will be quite cheaper then if we are designing for and house ERP system or big organization.
• Because as project is bigger, it will take more time and cost will also increase with increase in labour as well. This also posse’s considerable risk.

Contrast the approaches and describe advantages and disadvantages. What are some of the considerations that would affect the decision to use the ERP or best of breed approach?

• There are several advantages and disadvantages of this ERP system. And according to those, that would affect the decision to use those ERP’s.
• First if we look upon advantages then, this will give complete standardization of business processes based on vendor’s “Best Practice”. Along with this other benefit is customization of ERP system and it’s distinctive for competitors.
• Along with advantages it has some disadvantages as well, such as long-term analysis and design processes and high expenses. And competitors will have access to the system and interruption of operation for almost 3-5 years.
• Based upon a number of factors, including data assimilation, cost-effectiveness, economical environment, time management and impact on trade, most organization came to conclusion of implementing “vanilla” ERP system.

Reference: -

Sumner, M 2005, Enterprise resource planning, 1st edn, Pearson Prentice Hall,

Saddle River.