Saturday, July 17, 2010

BilkentMBA2010 Lessons Learned Week2

Microsoft Word - JEA Nov 2005 - EA-ERP Article

Microsoft Word - JEA Nov 2005 - EA-ERP Article

We learnt that what are the inital needs of an implementation phase of ERP systems and why does a company needs an integrated system?

The initial needs of a company before implementation of an ERP system are,

- Aim of growth

- Current systems’ incapability of handling the loads

- Higher complexity

- The opportunities to improve processes and reduce the costs

- To improve the financial control of the company

- Have a better information about the processes

- Share information between departments easily

- To gain competitive strength

- Data integrality

Why should a company not implement an ERP system?

- Resistance to change

- May be the strategy of the company is not in the line with ERP, the need of company can met with a cheaper alternatives

- The cost of implementing an ERP system is so high

- Implementing an ERP system may not met the demand of the firm

- May be the organisation is not ready to implement such a system

- Company may not want to grow anymore

What is the success of company?

Success means the customer satisfaction:

-how you meet the requirements (recuirement functionality),

-how you meet the budget

And how you meet the timeline

What should be done before implementing an ERP system?

Some analysis should be done before implementing an ERP system. These analysis are,

GAP analysis; this analysis determines that where I am as a company now? And where should I be as a company? AS-IS and To Be sitiuations.

SWOT analysis; Strengths, weaknesses, oppurtunities and treatments of the company. Oppurtunities and Treatments form the external environment of the company and Strengths, weaknesses form the internal environment of the company.

Elevator speech; we can also use the elavotor speech to improve the companies benefits.

KEIRETSU: the way that Japanese organisations work. In this concept suppliers of the company work closely with each other.

Organisational Change Management:

%20 budget should be allocated to Organisational Change Management since Organisational change management is an initiative that aims to improve the success of the company.

There are 5 different needs for Organizational Change Management:

-Training; employees should be trained fort he new system adaptation.

- Business Process Procedures, documentations of processes should be managed

-Super user development: Super users are the workers who are trained earlier for helping to train his/her Colleagues . This users should be good at communication skills.

-Communications, for achieving the success we should be sure about all of the employees understands the ERP concepts , since misunderstanding can cause to failure.

-Security and role development; there should be given an authorization to the employees not any more then they need on the system.

What is the difference between the concept of Enterprise Architecture and ERP Business Case?

They are not the same concepts, but they complement each other. EA is a framework for strategy, business and technology planning. ERP systems are tools for integration that EA helps to meet the requirements and achieve strategic goals.ERP implementations should be ERP planned in the context of EA management since EA concept helps to reduce the risk of ERP implementation failure by using some tools to view the current and future conditions. EA is a complementary of ERP system. It makes you see the gaps of ERP implementations. First we should apply the EA concept then decide whether ERP could be the solution system or not. ERP system can be used to support the strategic plans but in fact, ERP should be the reason of the strategic plans.

EA concept was put forward by John Zachman in 1987 and 5 years later Spewack published a book about this concept.

How would we choose EA type?

Zachman’s type of EA, EA^3(Scott Bernard’s concept) and the company should choose the EA type which it fits with company’s demands, also which can be applicable for that company. Additionally the level of detail should also be concerned.

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