Question

Choose a company or organization and investigate a particular information system used by the Company – the system could be an ERP, a transaction processing system, a CRM system, a SCM system, etc

§ First select an organization and describe it, including business name, sector, and company size as a minimum.

§ Next, describe and explain the information to be investigated, system such as ERP, TPS, CRM, SCM, or similar, as discussed in class (custom-built proprietary systems are not allowed).

§ Then, highlight the problem faced by the company before implementing the system specified above and how the system helped resolve the problem.

§ Analyze (take apart and examine in depth) the implementation phase of the specified system, including implementation duration, implementation process or difficulties encountered, possible staff issues faced (e.g. training, redundancy, ethical), post-implementation performance etc.

Answer 1

Hershey ERP

Answer1:

The company is a Hershey Company that is a renowned company in the confectionery sector. The company manufactures chocolate products. The size of the company is large enough as it operates in various countries. The company employs around 18000 employees and it makes over 80 brands. The company revenue is in billions. Thus, the size of the company is very large.

Answer2:

ERP system provides an integrated platform to access real-time information for informed decision making to a company. ERP solution is implemented to improve business efficiency and customer service. Such a solution enhances collaboration between departments and the security of data.

Answer3:

Hershey Company chose an ERP system to improve its business efficiency. The main purpose of the Hershey Company to choose an ERP system was to move from an existing legacy system. The company also planned to implement this system to address the Y2K problem. But the adopted system did not help the company to achieve desired efficiency and productivity.

Answer4:

The project duration demanded was 48 months but the company management provided 30 months to complete this project. This caused a rushed deployment without considering the hidden complexities to implement an ERP solution. During implementation, Hershey planned to introduce three technologies for resource planning but it led to conflicts between many operations of the company. The company adopted a big bang approach than an incremental approach that hampered its business functions. Shortcuts were applied for data migration, system testing, and training to employees. During the implementation phase, the executives of the company were too busy to help ERP implementation. The implementation phase clearly missed a due diligence approach. The company introduced this system during the busiest session even the employees did not have received a good understanding of the ERP system.

The implementation of ERP caused the company to suffer a loss of $100 million because it was unable to deliver products to customers during peak season. These reasons caused the ERP system to fail to provide desired results for Hershey Company.