Day 3 - Elif

Today, we had a very interactive class discussion about different issues related to ERP. Firstly we have terminated our group project and then we have started to discuss on the articles we read. While implementing ERP, decision making process is very important for the compnanies. We had a chance to see an exmaple from Chine by reading the article of "ERP in China". We have seen how the decision making process is different in SOEs an PVs in China. Although culture is an important key factor while implementing different systems, organizations are willing to make come changes by training, improving communication skills, poeple commitment and knowledge management. We have learned also that there can be different methods to ease the implementation process of different sustems such as ERP. Selecting superusers is one of them. They are part of the team who are chosen and trained in advance and they motivate people and get them involved in the process which is quite usefull to make them adapted to the new system.
As there are a lot of international students in the class, discussing the cultural issues on ERP became very effective and concrete. Taking the opinion of students coming from different countries provided an enjoyable athmosphere. We had a chance to know different stereotypes and how they become influential. Although it is not very useful to make these stereotypes, sometimes they are seen as guidelines of key points that sould be kept on mind to be aware of the general structure and not to get confused and encounter an uncertainty in the future. Defining the French business environment as open to discussion but close to decision making process, Chinese environment as not very open to radical changes, Turkish environment as very different in terms of geographical issues are the very first things that comes on our minds. However, while discussing the issues and getting different point of views we understood that although there are some cultural changes, organizations can try to improve and and develop themselves and implement different systems which seems very radical at first like in the Chinese case.

See you tomorrow