Question

Writing a report for Senior Management for your recently SAP ERP Implemented Project.

you can also mentioned you faces some issues and the solutions of them. Sections must include into your project report will be... Title of Report Table of Contents Abstract/Introduction Methodology adopted Results Discussion points Conclusion Recommendations References/Bibliography/Appendices we will discuss more in class about this case study/assignment. Should be min 10 or max 15 pages including cover page/TOC/references.

Answer 1

ERP Project

Introduction:

Information Technology is no just a technology terminology; rather it has provided us solution for various enterprise problems. Ione such set of solution for enterprises are ERP i.e. Enterprise Resource Planning. Today ERP application is needed/ can be implemented in almost all the sectors of industries and within a particular sector, in all the respective departments too.

One such ERP project implementation we are discussing here is for our organization ABC Corp. Recently we implemented ERP project to provide a coherent and centralized functioning across departments.

We need to understand that ERP is not only concerned with just one department. Similarly, our ERP project implementation also deals with linking all the function in our organization viz., Customer Relationship Management, Sales Management, Marketing function, Human Resources Department, Finance and Accounting, Executive Decision Making Processes, Media and Press Releases Department, Grievance Redressal Mechanism etc.

Thus, ERP project implementation is not just about one application but it has complete enterprise solution as a package.

Methodologies Adopted:

Before implementation, we had to finalize a right vendor/consultant for ERP implementation. One important aspect was that we had to hire an independent consultant who had enough experiences in implementation process for ERP projects across sectors. Then selecting a right vendor is also important as each vendor has their own set of standard operating procedures for ERP implementation. Reason being, we needed to select a vendor who could provide us some form of customization too for respective departments.

Consultant helped us list of vendors who are key players in offering ERP software packages. Few notable names are…

- SAP Business Suit

- PeopleSoft

- Baan

- Microsoft

- Oracle Business Solutions

- Siebel

We selected the SAP ERP considering its successful implementation history across various industries and with very less issue being reported.

Few should be followed with respect to selection of vendor and ERP software package:

A. Return on Investment Ration:

Whatever ERP software package we select, we need to be sure that in the long run it should minimize our operational cost through use of ERP modules. It should never increase the cost of running through enterprise solution that was being implemented.

B. Smooth Implementation:

One should note that whenever there is ERP implementation processes are going on, it should provide us smooth transition from existing non-ERP based departmental processes to new ERP based departmental processes.

C. Future Changes Acceptance:

The ERP system we selected for implementation, it should always be ready to accept any future changes with respect to any business processes. On top of it, the acceptance of changes in the ERP system should not overrun the cost of such changes’ implementation.

ERP implementation methodologies Pahses:

1. Planning:

This step involves a detailed planning with consideration of all possible processes/ steps that we would be taking before starting the implementation processes. In depth even the smaller steps should be taken in to account in planning phase.

2. Implementation in Test Environment:

The ERP manager and vendor then process towards implementing ERP system in Test environment. This is controlled environment such that any adverse effect should not impact the current ongoing business process of organization.

3. Live Implementation:

After successful run in test environment under controlled actions, ERP system then put for live run integrating all the departmental function. It is monitored for all the processes and functions which are going in-and-coming-out from EERP system.

4. Post Implementation Maintenance:

It involves resolving any issue which arises through the use of ERP application.

We also have 3 methodologies for implementation:

1. Joint Implementation with another company

Here, you get option to share implementation cost with another major company so that entire implementation cost burden do not fall on our firm alone. It helps use to manage the risk.

2. Partial Implementation:

ERP is not implemented across entire organization. Here we select only important processes and departmental function where we want to implement ERP project. No doubt, it saves costs.

3. Full Implementation

It is the method, where you go ahead with full implementation of ERP system for whole of organization and completely independent on your own.

Out of all the above methodologies, we selected the last one i.e. full implementation. The major difference between all these methodologies was the risk of managing the cost of implementation in case of unexpected failure. Reason we went for Full Implementation; we did not want to leave any department out of integration processes as it would have impacted our business process adversely.

Results in Discussion points:

It involved whole one year or more to discuss various details such as

- What is our objective for ERP Implementation

- What vendor to select

- Which consultant to select

- What methodologies to select

- When to start the implementation processes

- What will be cost of implementation

- Who will be involved in management of ERP Application post implementation

- How many people, resource will get involved in training the workforce on uses of ERP System

…and so on.

Conclusion:

After all our planning processes, discussions, deliberations and brain storming, we took the decision to implement ERP system. No doubt, The result is now positive. Our company i.e. ABC Corp is giving us desired results through use of ERP system.

It was internal project so do not have any bibliography to attach.