Enterprise Systems

Introduction to Enterprise Systems

The main purpose of this essay to analyze the ERP implementation case studies from the top ERP sellers across the world. The organizations selected for the purpose of this essay would be the Woolworths, Cadbury and Hershey’s. As a part of this essay, due amount of consideration would be given towards finding the ERP use cases in relation to each of these organizations. In this essay, the various kinds of challenges faced by these organizations would be determined and also the benefits these organizations reaped through the process of ERP implementation would be discussed. Furthermore, in the due course of this essay, consideration would be given towards analyzing the trends in terms of the ERP implementation process and also the way in which an organization obtain a commercial value by obtaining a solution through the process of ERP implementation. In the essay, the fundamental values as well as the problems associated with enterprise structure would be depicted along with the various kinds of prospects in connection with the enterprise system. Moreover, through the given case studies, the essay will focus on the conditions that will determine the readiness of the selected organizations to execute the enterprise system. The thesis statement here is that, “whether all the Enterprise Resource Planning system is successful in terms of its implementation or is there even possibility of failure?”

Enterprise Resource Planning Case Studies- Determining its Success & Failure

An ERP ( Enterprise Resource Planning) system is known to be a business administration software that mostly comprises of a string of consolidated applications. This integrated software can be used by an organization to save and maintain their information at all levels of their business. An organization can make use of the ERP in the course of outlining a plan for their product, including their pricing as well as expansion (Kim et al. 2015). Moreover, an organization can make use of the ERP in terms of their process of production, sales, marketing, stock management, consignment and payment procedures.

With the implementation of the ERP system an organization can get the benefit of obtaining an unified current perspective of the key procedures of their business. This can easily execute by an organization by means of implementing a data management system in their organization (Poranki et al. 2015). Moreover, with the help of the ERP, an organization can very easily monitor the various resources related to their business, including the management of cash, inventory, production limit among many others. Furthermore, the concerned organization can share information across various divisions of their organizations, like that of production, sales, finance and purchase) keeping the entire process optimized. Additionally, it also has the capacity to manage the connection between various different commercial operations and also contributes towards maintaining a hassle-free connection with the external collaborators in connection to that particular organization. These were the few significant principles, which can organization is required to comply with in order to ensure the success of its Enterprise Resource Planning implementation process.

Cadbury can be a good example, when trying to depict the success of the ERP implementation plan. Cadbury is known to be a multinational organization in England, which is possessed by the Mondelez International. Cadbury was developed in the year 1824 in the United Kingdom and it is the second largest confectionery all across the world (Atapattu, 2015).

In the current few years, the concerned organization assembles a System Analysis and Program Development software, known as the SAP ERP 6.0 that has been executed by a brand known as the Kraft (Ali et al. 2017). This was considered to be one of the greatest executions that execution of the Enterprise Resource Planning all over the world. The use case associated with this particular implementation as attributed by the Kraft was the minimization of the functional cost of the concerned organization.

In terms of this case study of the Cadbury company it was determined that around 11,000 members of the workforce were sharing their information with the SAP system of the organization and this in turn was connected to the 1750 candidates by the year 2008(Ali et al. 2017) . Moreover, it was in the year 2008 only when the Kraft had appended the data SAP master information management system, NetWeaver with core attention towards unifying it into the legacy of the concerned organization.

In the beginning of the year 2005, the Cadbury company only had surplus of chocolate commodities in their stock, however, after the execution of the latest SAP oriented Enterprise Management System, the concerned organization headed towards having a stock of surplus chocolate strips after the end of the year 2005(Ali et al. 2017) . Furthermore, in this context the Cadbury Schweppes had an objective of making a complete saving from the investigation assignment, however, the process of its implementation was not near to being smooth. The concerned project experienced huge issues and late operations in the year 2002 when it was initially oriented in the country of Australia.

Cadbury was known to be a quick growing organization and hence it was not able to continue its survival with the structures that had already existed in the concerned organization. The functioning speed of the company was also reduced due to the outdated systems that was embraced by the concerned organization(Ali et al. 2017) . In this context, when the Enterprise Resource Planning system was executed in the Cadbury company, the effectiveness of the company also enhanced and the issue the company was facing due to its outdated systems and speedy growth was also resolved. Moreover, the execution of the ERP system in the organization also contributed towards creating a latest technique of managing its warehouse and this regards the concerned organization created a new structure in their head-quarters as well as in their multiple branches. Furthermore, in the due course of executing the ERP system, the concerned organization developed on the basis of their potentials that they had acquired in the past, thereby they also succeeded in maintaining their position in the highly competitive market across the world.

In the beginning phase of the ERP implementation process, the company took a great amount of time, however, the implementations which followed in the initial phase did not occupy much time and also incurred a lesser amount of expenses in the process of the concerned implementations (Heinzelmann, 2017). This cost-benefit is in itself can be considered as a big advantage other than those benefits that the organization can reap through the implementation of the ERP system. Another benefit in this context lies in the fact that the response and comments of the rival companies is not of any significance as this not a transformation that the concerned organization was embraced and that which has been promoted in the market. Furthermore, the implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning system in an organization is known to be a method of refurbishing the system and this transformation was very much appreciated as it was strongly required by the Cadbury company. Additionally, in this direction the concerned organization had also developed a powerful daily feedback platform to keep a track of the transformations that was taking place and also to confirm that if these changes were being implemented in a way in which it was primarily planned (Chofreh et al. 2018). The whole process of implementation is multi-functional and thus it is very much significant for a high enhancement in the effectiveness of the organization.

The ERP seller that was selected by the Cadbury company belonged to the top-level, that assisted the organization to execute all their procedures in an optimized way. Moreover, the choice of a top-class ERP seller, also prevented the concerned organization from any scope of interruptions in its beginning phase of executing the new system (Soliman et al. 2016). The Enterprise Resource Planning System has been outsourced to the reach of its sellers. In this regard, the concerned organization has accommodated a website which is known as the vendor’s connect, wherein the Cadbury company can keep a track on the fluctuation of their stock and make their programs in accordance to it. Thus, it can be said that such refurbishment not only takes place at an internal level, moreover it takes place in its complete network of distributors and in this way, the concerned organization will add more to the range of advantages which they have already obtained in the past. Another significant aspect that is required to be considered is that the concerned ERP implementation process is affordable and it achieves great implementation outcomes (Soliman et al. 2016). This on itself depicts the various accomplishments as well as the advantages that has been obtained by the Cadbury company.

Woolworths can be one of the best examples among the case studies depicting the failure in the implementation of its Enterprise Resource Planning system. Woolworths is known to be a series of hyper-market and grocery stores in the country of Australia. The concerned organization is headquartered in the city of Bella Vista that is located in the country of Australia. While exploring, the failure count of the ERP implementation projects, it has been determined that Woolworths stands at the top of the list and the concerned organization had incurred a loss of AU $ 1.2 billion in the year 2016 (Soliman et al. 2016).

In the fiscal year 2016, Banducci, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Woolworths declared that some significant transformation would be implemented in the functioning of the concerned organization. The use case in this context was to enhance the cultural environment of the organization and thereby improve the kind of experience that would be provided to the consumers of the concerned organization (Rouhani et al. 2018). The Woolworths company worked with the objective of eliminating any non-significant expenses that is incurred by the organization and also work towards improving the administration of the organization. In this regard, Woolworths was in quest of an SAP oriented software that will work towards eliminating the payroll structure of the concerned organization that was being used by the Woolworths since the last 20 years.

The Woolworths company had taken an initiative to implement a SAP system which in turn will make sure that the total human resource management system is administered in an adequate manner. The SAP was available in various different structures, inclusive of the performance goals, expertise, accomplishments, payroll, self-assistance, learning as well as rewards. In this context, the main problem was in the customized declarations that the management was to get in each week, however, the company was not able to generate the same for a span of 18 months. The key issue determined in this context was the absence of an adequate plan of action as well as proper knowledge about the procedures of its own commercial activity on the part of the Woolworths company. Furthermore, the concerned organization also failed to keep a record of their information for a period of 6 years (Badewi et al. 2016). In this way, the concerned organization even resulted in a loss of their institution-based understanding.

The real reason for the downfall of the Enterprise Resource System implemented by the Woolworths company was its decision to go live towards the middle of the year 2019, wherein the concerned organization incurred a loss of millions in their sales. Due to the loss, the concerned organization was also not able to provide orders to their distributors and hence the racks on their supermarket chain was left vacant . This was the key reason due to which the customers experienced product availability issues in the concerned supermarket chain. Moreover, due to the failure of ERP implementation, the situation was such that the concerned organization lost its track from its productivity, sales, gain and performance effectiveness of its business (Arachchi et al. 2015). Hence, in order to eliminate the scope of ERP implementation failure, it is significant for an organization to have a comprehensive knowledge of the HCM system and also the employees of the Woolworths should train in terms of the application of the new system that has been implemented in that particular organization.

Furthermore, it was also determined that the loss of customized reports for each of its supermarkets was not only due to the lack of planning on the part of its employees, however, it was also due to absence of knowledge in terms of the key commercial procedures of the concerned organization (Arachchi et al. 2015). Additionally, the old and experienced employees of the organization had left the company in the dues course of its 6 years transformation procedure.

The most significant trend in association with the development of Enterprise Resource Planning system is its demand for coherent consolidation over multiple software as well as structures. For example, the ERP system can be integrated with the CRM solution to provide trouble-free automation of procedures on the part of an organization. In this way, the concerned organization will have the provision of accessing all its information on a real-time basis and also will be able keep a track on the orders placed by its customers. Woolworths failed to achieve these benefits in the due course of implementing its ERP system and in a particular point of time, the racks of their supermarkets was left vacant (Romero et al. 2016). Thus, if the workforce of the supermarket chain would have been trained with the concerned ERP solution, this issue would not have been experienced by the organization and would have reaped all the above benefits as per the latest trends embraced by the Enterprise Resource Planning System.

As per the latest trends, the Enterprise Resource Planning system provides highly customized solutions to the organizations implementing the same. Moreover, in the upcoming years, the ERP customers will be in quest of a ERP solution that would be created as per the basic requirements of the industry. In this way, the clients can eliminate the scope of customizing it and just make sure that they are in par with the current scenario of the industry (El et al. 2016). This solution can be considered relevant in the context of the Cadbury company, wherein the concerned organization can work towards enhancing its performance without customizing its system and maintaining the original standard as well as the reputation of the company.

Conclusion on Enterprise Systems

Through this essay it has been determine that in order to ensure a successful implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning system, it is significant for the workforce of that particular organization to have an adequate level of knowledge in terms of the implementation of that particular software. Furthermore, it is also significant for an organization to provide proper training to its employees so that they can ensure proper application of the new system that has been implemented by that particular organization. Additionally, it has been determined that the management of Cadbury had a proper planning in place in terms of the implementation of its Enterprise Resource Planning system, due to which it was able to enhance the level of efficiency of its organization, which was totally absent in the case of the Woolworths. In the due course of this essay, it has been portrayed that the Cadbury company has achieved a successful ERP implementation process while the Woolworths company achieved failure in terms of ERP implementation process. Hence, it can restated that, “ it is the level of understanding among the employees of an organization and proper planning that determines the success and failure of its ERP implementation procedure, according to which an ERP implementation can be a success or a failure.”

References for Enterprise Systems

Ali, M. and Miller, L., (2017). ERP system implementation in large enterprises–a systematic literature review. Journal of Enterprise Information Management. 30(4), pp.666-692.

Arachchi, S.M., Chong, S.C. and Madhushani, A.G.I., 2015. Quality assurance and quality control in ERP systems implementation. American Scientific Research Journal for Engineering, Technology, and Sciences (ASRJETS), 11(1), pp.70-83.

Atapattu, M.R., 2015. Customer agility, smart shopping apps and their implications: Customer relationship management systems in the digital age (Doctoral dissertation, Queensland University of Technology). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/84866/

Badewi, A. and Shehab, E., 2016. The impact of organizational project benefits management governance on ERP project success: Neo-institutional theory perspective. International Journal of Project Management, 34(3), pp.412-428. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263786315001933

Chofreh, A.G., Goni, F.A. and Klemeš, J.J., 2018. A roadmap for Sustainable Enterprise Resource Planning systems implementation (part III). Journal of Cleaner Production, 174, pp.1325-1337.Retrieved from El Kadiri, S., Grabot, B., Thoben, K.D., https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095965261732591X

Hribernik, K., Emmanouilidis, C., Von Cieminski, G. and Kiritsis, D., 2016. Current trends on ICT technologies for enterprise information systems. Computers in Industry, 79, pp.14-33. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166361515300142

Heinzelmann, R., 2017. Accounting logics as a challenge for ERP system implementation: A field study of SAP. Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JAOC-10-2015-0085/full/html

Kim, J.H., Jung, R.D. and Young, C.C., 2015. A study of success and failure in ERP implementation: the case of the agricultural products processing center. International Journal of u-and e-Service, Science and Technology, 8(7), pp.183-194. http://modul.repo.mercubuana-yogya.ac.id/modul/files/openjournal/JournalOfEngineering/18_262.pdf

Poranki, K.R., Perwej, Y. and Akhtar, M.N., 2015. Integration of SCM and ERP for Competitive Advantage. Research Journal of Sciences and IT Management, 4(5), pp.17-24. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dr_Yusuf_Perwej/publication/272885592_Integration_of_SCM_and_ERP_for_Competitive_Advantage/links/59da52770f7e9b12b36d8608/Integration-of-SCM-and-ERP-for-Competitive-Advantage.pdf

Rouhani, S. and Mehri, M., 2018. Empowering benefits of ERP systems implementation: empirical study of industrial firms. Journal of systems and information technology. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSIT-05-2017-0038/full/html?fullSc=1&mbSc=1

Romero, D. and Vernadat, F., 2016. Enterprise information systems state of the art: Past, present and future trends. Computers in Industry, 79, pp.3-13. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166361516300483

Soliman, M. and Karia, N., 2016. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems in the Egyptian Higher Education Institutions: Benefits, Challenges and Issues. In International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mohamed_Soliman_Mohamed_Soliman/publication/316701745_Enterprise_Resource_Planning_ERP_Systems_in_the_Egyptian_Higher_Education_Institutions_Benefits_Challenges_and_Issues/links/5af2e787a6fdcc0c0305105b/Enterprise-Resource-Planning-ERP-Systems-in-the-Egyptian-Higher-Education-Institutions-Benefits-Challenges-and-Issues.pdf

Remember, at the center of any academic work, lies clarity and evidence. Should you need further assistance, do look up to our Enterprise Systems Assignment Help

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