Week 4 Discussion

Answer to the Question:  The Company, Wingate Electric can implement an ERP system which will help the company retain its glory and the system will improve the company’s daily business processes and earn some profit as well.  The ERP system will help the company by upgrading the MIS system and efficient storage of transaction processes like sales order processing, inventory control, accounts payable, accounts receivable etc.  The system will surely overcome the problem of redundancy by using only one file system to store all the data.  In that way, no repition will occur.  A database has to be created in order to sort the datas so that the company can access any data and its attributes within a short time.  The ERP system will re-engineer the manufacturing of data by creating that database.  The system will support production planning and manufacturing by adding different modules in the system. 

if Wingate Electric Company does not order and implement the ERP system which they want to implement so badly, then the company will surely fall to its demise as it is already is in bad shape with its MIS system, repetition of datas regarding accounting and financial transaction processes.  It will be a waste of time because all the resources which they have used to order the ERP system such as thinking, remodelling the organisation, how to improve the manufacturing process etc.  will be of no help to them.  Also, the RFP which the top managemant board of the company thought of after a long time of consideration will fade away if no ERP system has been implemented to support the RFP module.  The company can go on for maximum six months but after that it will lose all of its resources to make anymore production thus experiencing a great loss and the CEO will be forced to shut the company as it will be too late to recover the loss. 

Week 2 and Week 3 Discussion

Answer of week 2 question:  If the IT Department want to adopt an ERP system, they should first see what kind of resources they have in order to support the new system and also consider the implementation failures.  A lot of companies fail to implement ERP systems and that is why this company have to analyse what are the possible failures that might arise when implementing the system.  The possible failures which might occur are customizations.  Every ERP project has its own unique customizations. It is the customization which makes the ERP system capable of working according to the needs’ of a particular business and its business processes.  However, this customization process is expensive and sometimes because of this the project is not completed by the deadline and also the budget is gone over the estimated one.  Customization also makes the software vulnerable and difficult to maintain.  Changes are necessary in later stages when the system is being implemented in the company due to inadequate requirements.  When evaluating the right product for the company in order to support the system, the IT Department might be confused due to a various range of products available in the market.  Also, choosing the right product might be difficult because a lot of products will have the same functionalities and capabilities to support the system but the longevity of the products might not be the same.  So, the Department have to analyse from a range of products and make sure the selected product meet all the requirements with the resources of the company.  After that, they can recommend the right product to the CEO of the company. 

Answer of week 3 question:  If a business has business processes which does not match with a commercially available ERP system, then the business should not adopt the ERP system because that would result in confusion with operating the system with unchanged business processes.  If the business processes are not re-engineered, then the new system would not be supported by the processes and it will not work for the organisation.  The business will survive but it will face loss every moonth and little profit.  Adopting an ERP system means changing the business processes so that the business can improve its performance in the long-run.  On the other hand, if the business does adopt the ERP system without changing its business processes, then they will have to make a lot of changes within the ERP system.  They will have re-organize the functions of the system in order to cope with the business processes.  However, in the long-run, this approach may not be suitable for the business because sooner or later the business has to change its business processes to support the ERP system due to the changes in the marketplace and arrival of new competitors. 

Week 1 Discussion

Answer to question 1: There are six elements in business process re-engineering and they are:

• Business processes which computerize the activities of day-to-day business.
• Integration which combines business processes.
• Technology which which uses advanced technology to redecorate business processes.
• Cross-functional coordination which redecorate the developments of daily business.
• Timing which upgrade processes and
• Objective which applies market-driven policies created to offer a competitive edge.

If a business does not want to change its business processes and sets a goal that it will improve without embracing any values from an ERP, then the business will surely fall to its demise and will not improve. It will face a lot problems and risks if they do not change their processes and do not apply the ERP within the organisation. The risks that the business will encounter will be wastage of a lot of money because the ERP system which they ordered took a lot of time to built and the business ordered it by paying a lot of money. So, the business has experienced a great loss instead of profit. They will gain no profit if they do not use the system. Another risk is that the business will lose a great amount of their resources. The business has spent a lot time thinking about improvements within the organisation and alot of changes has been made in the previous sytem to invite the new ERP system. If they do not use the ERP system, then all the resources like time, money, manpower which they used to improve the organisation will be a big wastage and no profit will be gained.

Answer of question 2: There are some ups and downs between Best of breed and ERP implementations. The best of breed tends to emphasize on the buyer’s perspective. For example, If a business wants to purchase some parts for is system, would it buy the parts from different marketplaces? The Best of breed has the tradition of acquiring diffrerent things from different buyers’. However, the ERP system only emphasizes on a one-stop approach in order to buy all the parts needed for the system of that particular business.

The advantage and disadvantages f both of the approaches are given below:

The advantages of ERP system:

• One-stop approach – It gives the option to the buyer to correspond with one supplier.
• Viability – Established ERP firms can capture the market when they see possible opportunities to make profits.
• Broader offering – many companies which acquires financial solutions need more products along with it such as Hr, procurement, order entry etc. and ERP firms are offering those products to those businesses.

The advantages of Best of breed system are:

• Expertise – The buyers’ choose selected product ranges which best suites their core competencies.
• Time – The system can be implemented easily without having to worry about the final decisions made by the executive board.
• Choice – The sellers’ of this system have more opportunities to offer the requirements of the buyers’.

The disadvantages of the ERP system are:

• Time – The implementation of the system takes a bit of time.
• Diversity – there are too much product ranges’ available by many vendors’ in the marketplace. Therefore, at a point, their entrance in the marketplace will cause their demise as many products will not be needed by the buyers’.

The disadvantages of Best of breed system are:

• Consolidation – If a seller is not favored by the buying organization, the the relationship between them is broken and the seller makes no profit.
• Interfacing options – The system needs interfaces to pass information. However, some interfaces are complex and hard to implement. So, choosing a proper interface is time consuming.

Additional considerations which would affect the decision of which system to choose are Cost. Costs are always important when it comes to selecting a particular system. When it comes to selecting between ERP and Best of Breed, the business needs to calculate pricing options and should determine what would be a predictable cost to buy the system. Implementation costs are also important in order to successfully apply the system within the organization and maintaining the standards of it.

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