Week 10 Discussion

Question (a) The possible aspects would be transactional process.  Superior fuctions of the SAP business information system and system perferomance.  Also there are ascpects about automating and integrating proceses to share data around the world.  The SAP software has capabilities like joining together internal and external informations of the business. 

Question (b) The challenges would be the upgradation of the business information system in the future.  Anotther challenege can be to distinguish large amounts of data and turn them in to profits.  Another challenge could be the user resistence of the business information system where adapting the system might cause the company to pay high costs and resources

Question (c) The corporation isa candiidate for the  share services approached because it has a lot of sucess stories in recent times and has the resources and capabilities to adapt ERP systems and continue with there business processes. The company also has scopes for software evaluation processes and has data ware house structures has an important part of the business ,operations and stratergies. 

Week 9 Discussion

Answer to Question:  ERP systems have a very complex project structure and it requires various sytems to be installed within the ERP system with the integration of the business processes.  In the 21st Century, ERP implementations are considered to be the most important prat of system applications in organizations.  Sometimes, the project bears risks because it has a lot of variables associated with it such as costs, budget, size, development team etc.  Strategic Information Systems applications can pose threats to an organization.  However, non-strategic applications possess tasks which are important for success.  Similarly, an ERP system is very much strategic because it incorporates all the busines processes of a company associated with software applications.  Some companies hire external cosultants from different firms to help them with ERP implementations.  An ERP project needs highly skillful people to execute during the actual implementation process.  The organization tends to hire consultants to get better advices to implement better systems in the future for the benefit of their company. That is why they call in expert consultants.     

 

Week 8 Discussion

Answer to Question 1(a):  According to the evolution process of the manufacturing process, we can see that the manufacturing processes have modified its structure from time to time and in the 21st Century, ERP systems were introduced to us to obtain greater benefits using the new sophisticated manufcaturing processes.  It all started with the realignment of the stocks which were needed to produce items which the customer’s ordered.  The main problems of the manufacturing process previously when it started was the lack of incorporation between important departments such as financial accounting, production planning, sales, purchases etc.  Today, ERP systems derived from the manufacturing processes way back when it was first put into test.  IN the matter of a non-manufacturing company, it can adopt an ERP system and can run its production processes and other departments without any problems because the ERP system can incorporate all the departments and the production planning processes more quickly and easily because of the modules built within it.  An ERP system can integrate all the business needs of that company according to the environment.  If it is not a manufacturing company, then the company can chose an ERP system according the functionalities and business objectives of that company. 

ANswer to Question 1(b):  We can see from the history of the manufacturing processes, that all the systems which we know today derived from the manufacturing processes.  It is the origin of all systems as we know it.  The invention of the MES changed the way businesses integrated their business processes previously.  With MES, a new door opportunity came in front of the business.  Suppliers created new products and services to create a new impression for the customer’s and also to satisfy them in a better way.  With the help of the MES System, feedbacks have been provided to manage the manufacturing processes for the estimation of the market needs.  Then, the ERP systems were created to integrate the manufacturing processes with other business processes.  Therefore, in the end, it can be said that manufacturing processes are the basis for today’s ERP systems. 

Answer to Question 3:  Human Resources can be associated in production planning and Materials Management becuase HR Dpeartments do the staffing of people in order to incorporate tasks in the production planning and to look out for the replenishment of materials in order to produce new products and services in the production processes.

 Sales and Distribution is related to both of them because with every sale employees can see from the record in the database how much profit have been made from how many sales and also the number of inventories left to produce new products and services. 

Financial Accounting has a relationship with them because all the profits from the sales are recorded in the accounting department and the company can see whether or not they are achieving the finanacial goals they want to obtain.

Week 7 Discussion

Answer:  User resistance occurs when users’ are not reluctant to share the interaction with the new implemented ERP system.  When users’ have a problem adapting with the huge change that an ERP system brings in to improve the busness processes within the organization.  User resistance can bring major problems to an organization especially when there are orders to be accomplished and send to the party which has ordered the items.  Without the users’ using the system, no feedback can be achieved from the orders in the proudction process.  Then, the company would not know how much the orders have completed or whther they will finish the job on time or not.  Another problem might occur when user resistance is a barrier is that organizations’ will lose huge amount of money behind the implementation of this ERP system because they have already invested a lot of money to accept this ERP to bring changes into the organization.  If the employees does nnot want to work with the new system because they do not want to adapt with the new ways of doing things, then the company will be heavily bombarded with the loss of their investments and the resources which the company used to train those employees so that they can accept the changes brought by the ERP system. 

Week 6 Discussion

Answer:  If a company wish to implement an ERP system without knowing what are the problems are within that company then the ERP system won’t work properly because some functions of that system would not perform as planned simply because some problems still exist within the organization which are blocking the system from being able to work effectively.  Successful ERP implementation means improving the business processes by removing all the existing problems which the company had in the past and apply new softwares or functions to carry out daily business processes to gain profit in the near future so thst the company can compete in the marketplace.  So, a company, from my point of view, should not implement an ERP system before fully understanding the problems within the organization.  If they do implement an ERP system without knowing the problems, then it would be a failure and a huge loos of money, resources, manpower and more importantly time.  The company would not be able to recover easily because it would take a lot of time and also because of the bad reputation created by unsuccessful implementation of that particular ERP system.   

Week 5 Discussion

Answer:  The list of potential business disrupting events is getting bigger and longer by the day.  Disrupting events such as IT failures, power failures, viruses, fire, trades union action, terrorist attacks, weather etc.  A business unsettling event could be troublesome such as a terrorist attack or something more ordinary such as a heating system failure in the winter causing power failures. A major disruption may cause the the business to loss of money, loss of orders and even losing precious customers. A business continuity plan can help a business should do in the event of business disruptions and what measures should the business take to prevent those disasters from happening again in the future.  Business continuity planning is about analyzing the business’s crucial functions and outputs, evaluate the threats associated with them and defining a plan to eradicate, minimise and supervise any threat which can cause trouble to the functions of the business.  Without this plan, a business can be in great trouble because the events and the potential consequences would be the loss of profits due to the cancellation of customers’ orders, breakdown of the supply chain, harming the business’s brand and reputation, health and safety issues and Human Resources Management issues.   

Week 4 Discussion

Answer: The Wingate Electric Company will be helped by the ERP system in ways and areas which they have lacked previously. The ERP system will alter the rugged MIS sytem and improve its capabilities of storing much more accounting and financial datas. It will hwelp the business to reengineer the processes and improve the flow of transaction processes more swiftly like sales order processing, inventory control, accounts payable etc. The ERP system will also help the company by improving the file storage system by creating a database which will sort and contain all the important datas. The MIS system needs to be upgraded in order to avoid file redundancy to help creating the database with proper documentations. The ERP system will also have elements supporting production planning and manufacturing processes like eBusiness, Human Resources, CRM etc. If Wingate Electric Company does not implement the ERP system, then it will not survive for long because of its ragged condition. It will survive for a few months but after that, it will run out all of its resources to continue production and incur great losses which will be impossible to recover. The company will then have to be shut down as there will be no other way.

Week 2 &3 Discussion

Answer to question 1:  If the IT Department has been given the task of adopting an ERP system, then the Department should look for proper vendor who would give them suitable software which will benefit the organization in order to develop their performances.  In order to select a suitable ERP system, the IT Department must evaluate the product so that it meets the requirements of the business type and its activities’ and then propose this ERP system to the CEO of the company.  However, there are some problems which may arise because of this decision in the first place.  Some people within the organization may not see this opportunity as a good one and may propose that things are going well without the implementation of an ERP system but the top level managers might think that according to compete with other businesses’ in the future, the company needs to have an ERP system like the others.  Another problem which may arise is that the IT Department may get off-track when making the decision of choosing the right software for the company.  Sometimes, they would choose a product which meets the requirements but it may not work properly under pressure.  So, the Department may take a long time to evaluate the software in order to ensure that the software meets the requirements in all areas.  In the meantime, things could run a bit slow within the company causing a temporary loss for the business.     Answer to question 2:   If a business wants to adopt an ERP system and does not want to change its business processes, then the company can perform for a short period of time in the marketplace.  However, in the future, it will face problems maintaining their business because of continous changes in the business world and the arrivsal of new softwares and competitive companies.  It will manage its operation with the old business processes but not for very long because the new ERP system would not be able to help very much if it is not supported with business processes which do not match with the system.  On the contrary, if the business adopts the ERP system and the business processes does not match, then they can make changes into the system slightly to match with their business processes and can perform their operations but they have to be cautious due to their unchanged business processes would not help them veery long.  The ERP system is their so that the business change its busines processes and improve their way of doing business.  If the business does not want to change its processes then the value of the ERP system would not be of that much value.  

Week 1 Discussion

Answer (1) if a business do not want to change its business processs it cant gain a value from Erp systemtherefore the business will experience wastage of thier time and fundings. They wil not make any profit because they have spent miliions of dollars buying this erp system. Also if they donot apply this system within the organisation thereis no point of thinking about improvements in the future. They will also experience another risk which is there resources such as information about the system,money,time will be a big wastage,if the business donot use the Erp system and get benefit from it. Also implementation costs wil be a big burden for tehm because they send most of there time and resources behind installing the new system within the organisation.

Answer (2) The best of breed approach tends to forcus on the buyers prospectives. it acquires inforamtion about buying differnt things from different sellers according to their need. On the other hand an Erp system is a much more efficient way to communicate with buyers and sellers. It tends to focus on a one stop approach to collect all the things a business needs.

The advantages of best of breed and Erp system are that the best of breed system has various product ranges according to the needs many different business,the system is easy install and can be easily used by any user and the vendors offer various products in order to meet differnt needs for this system to various businesses which is in need of the system.on the other hand and Erp system provides a one stop shop apporch for all businesses so that they can collect any item they want by contacting only one vendor who has all the products,Erp firms can make a profit by understanding waht oppurtunities arise within there surroundings and expolict them for the good of the company and the companies also offer a wide range of services to other companies.

The disadvantages of both systems are that the Erp system takes time to be implemented and when it comes to selling parts of the system to a business sellers can get confused because of the various product ranges because some of the things will not be needed by the business for that system. The best of breed system has disadvantages of not having a favourable seeler on the side of a business, if  the seller cannot please the business with the range of proudcts and the system has interface problems as the right interface is hard to choose.

Additional things to keep in mind is cost which is acrucial element to consider when it comes to decide which system the business wants to choose in order to improve its processes. Alo the business needs to consider  implementation costs in order to calculate how many parts of the system will be installed within the organisation.

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