Discussion
You will be required to conduct research on AIS/ERP Systems for your client.
In this following report, the author has discussed the procedures of choosing an ERP system for businesses to take informed decision in considering to implement this information system. The business processes of the prospective business has been evaluated and discussed. Business requirement of that a particular organization has been taken into context. The system requirements of that particular organization has been discussed as well. Next, a proper selection of software and vendors for other proposed technology are assessed and evaluated in the report. Three ways have been suggested by which ERP technologies can enhance the business efficiency has been widely discussed conclusively. Moreover, the level of efficiency due to the implementation of the technology has been assessed. The risk of data breaches and security are measured adequately and assessed with the organization in context. Proper recommendations have been provided in the report to address these issues in the future.
Business processes
Being one of largest chocolate manufacturers in the world, Cadburys was founded in 1824.
The primary business processes as well as the supporting business processes consists of the basic business processes.
The primary business processes consists of the following elements:
- Service
- Marketing
- Operations
- Outbound sales logistics
- Inbound sales logistics
The supporting business processes consists of the following elements:-
- Firm infrastructure
- Technology department
- Human resources
- Procurement
In the outbound sales logistics, Cadburys distributes, stores and receives warehouse materials. The head office is located in Mutiara. The companyy receives the products which are not available for production at its later distribution and storage facilities.
Through the outbound sales logistics, the company distributes its customer with its services and products. Instead of opting for short sea shipping, train or mail transportation, Cadburys believes in distributing its products through land transportation to deliver the goods in good shape. To avoid empty runs, the company has invested in big Lorries that can transport more products over long distance without any hassle (Morschett, Schramm-Klein and Zentes 2015). Other grocery shops such as Giant and Tesco also make use of this service. The excess products are all sent to other branches of Cadburys.
In the operations business process, the inputs of the company are transformed into services and products. As Cadburys has a huge number food varieties such as chocolates, chilled diaries, ice cream and confectionary, the raw materials are needed for every different item. The raw materials such as milk, cocoa and whipped cream are then turned into their final products and stored in a freezer where they are packaged as the products of Cadburys.
Business processes
In the marketing business procedure, the customers are assisted to avail the services and products of the company. Cadburys has to take care of customer sentiments as well such as Halal considerations while making a product. The ingredients need to be properly labelled on every consumer product. Running such a huge organization is not an easy task but Cadburys has managed to attract customer efficiently with their marketing initiatives. Cadburys invests on making flyers and TV commercials and giant commercials on shopping malls.
The service business process includes the post-sale support like maintenance and repairments. The consumers are provided with the official site by Cadburys to place their product reviews. This allows the company to take heed of customer feedback. Through this business process, Cadburys reduced the sugar content of its products by 33% and decreased the salt content by 74% (Malaurent and Avison 2015).
There are several other supporting business processes of Cadburys which are written as follows:-
- Procurement- in this business process, the company makes sure that the suppliers are always available so that the product manufacturing keeps on running with the available raw materials.
- Human resources- This business department manages the hiring and recruitment of potential employees. They manage the payment, training and benefit of the employees (Sustainment 2014). Cadburys has managed to attract a lot of employees towards the organization and provides the workers with a lot of positions and opportunities. They also take care of the rights and duties of employees.
- Technology development- This department manages the business processes that improves the services and products of the company. They gave a research and development department which manages that the requirements if the customers are always met (Nagpal, Khatri and Kumar 2015). The warehouses use solar panels to manage the energy consumption.
System requirements
Cadburys needed a system which can efficiently manage existing stakeholders and clients. The company needed a system through which it can expand its lines, optimize efficiencies of its business processes, set up proper global network and enhance their accounting systems. The company needed a time tracking infrastructure that could efficiently manage its finance and counting and properly carry out its internal customer management. The company required a system that could make better decision making to automate the organizational workflow (Leon 2014). Cadburys also needed to integrate the department functional departments of the company under an integrated platform. An integrated system was needed that could operate in real time without the need to upgrade from time to time. Cadburys needed an IT system that could have a common database which would be supported by all the existing applications. The modules that would be present in all the departments needed to have a consistent look and the system needed to integrate elaborately with the IT department of Cadburys.
The functional requirement of Cadburys through the new integrated IT system are written as follows:-
- Data Services
- Financial Accounting
- Human Resources
- Managerial Accounting
- Customer Relationship Management
- Supply Chain Management
The required functional components of Cadburys were the management portal and the transactional database.
Cadburys had to also manage the backend processes of the company with proper software modules such as:-
- Business Needs Assessments
- Redundant Task Reduction
- Project Planning
- Supply Chain Management
- Distribution Process Management
- Financial Data Management
- Price Configuration
Software and vendor selection
There are several criteria for selecting a proper vendor and software system for a prospective company like Cadburys. Implementing a new ERP system is a complex process even for a large organisation like Cadburys. The system will need an initial investor, a project that will span for several months and an expert as the software implementer. In short, the implementation of the system will have the potential to change the business processes of the organization. The criteria for the selection procedure are written as follows:-
- The functional requirements need to be met – The functional requirements of Cadburys need to be mapped in the analysis process according to its system capabilities. The prioritized requirements need to be focused on the initial phases and the time consuming complex processes need to be left for later phases.
- The scalability and flexibility of the platform – After the analysis of the functional requirements are conducted, Cadburys need to makes sure that the system will be ready for future upgrades and should have standard features. The scalability and flexibility of the system will allow companies like Cadburys to prevent limitation in the future.
- Easy UI – The system will need to have an intuitive user interface which allow the users of the system to properly search for data and record new transactions efficiently for maximising the productivity of Cadburys. The easier usability criteria will allow the Cadburys to manage customer service quality efficiently.
- Innovative technology – The technologies that Cadburys plans on implementing in their respective company should be innovative enough that they do not become obsolete in a couple of years. In the present market scenario, technology develops rapidly that might bottleneck a company from expanding in the new future if the technology is not advanced enough. Presently, the cloud based ERP systems are the latest technology in the market.
- Flexible financing and competitive pricing – Cadburys should choose a proper vendor that will provide the required return in investments in a couple of years. The company needs ti distribute the cost over time and they should assess if they should go for an upfront investment (like on premise ERP systems) or a subscribed monthly payment (like cloud services).
- Customizable source code – As Cadburys works with a large number of products, they need to select the proper vendor who will let them access their source code to make some tweaks in the system for their business processes. The vendor should be able to use the standard languages to gain complete access control of the ERP software.
- Proper background check of the vendor – Cadburys needs to properly check the vendor details and history of their implementation before properly choosing the ERP solution.
System requirements
Three ways ERP can be used for business efficiency
To gain business efficiency, companies can use ERP in three particular aspects
Resources
Resources of the organization have been available to different individuals in the organization. Accordingly, the appropriation of the ERP have helped in giving security of to the Resources of the organization. Budgetary Resources are imperative for the company as the necessities for the execution examination are the basic achievement factors. The majority of the company’s experiences need in money related resources in the market. In this manner, constrained budgetary resources make issue in drawing closer towards a high spending venture from enormous organizations (Negi and Bansal 2013). The cost of the PC equipment and programming have been considered in the market. The underlying expense incorporate the cost of PC programming advertisement equipment alongside IT usage cost and cost of client preparing and advancement have been kept up in the diverse periods of the IT reception. The usage of the ERP interest in the independent venture association has been going about as a win factor for the selection of the IT in the organization. The larger benefits of the ERP reception in the organization have been in keeping up the basic leadership framework in the private venture.
IT Solutions
The procedure of the ERP selection has been incorporated into the independent ventures that relies upon the attributes of IS/IT segments including Process, prevalence and similarity. The usage of the ERP in the independent venture have held in limiting the multifaceted nature of the activities in the organization. The utilization of various applications in the private venture have helped in limiting the work control in the group. The specialized properties of the ERP items and managements are accessible in the market that aides in giving in better ways to deal with the clients (Ptak and Schragenheim 2016). The ERP provides accessibility in the market that aides in keeping up the offers of items and managements of the organizations. The execution of the private venture have been improved keeping in mind the end goal to keep up the development of the organization in the market.
Government
The reception of the ERP in the company has been influenced by the inclusion if the legislature in the specific situation. The management have assumed a critical part in the reception of the IT frameworks in the independent company. Activities taken by government have upheld the reception of the ERP in the private venture. Legislative strategies have helped in keeping up the ERP model of the business.
Software and vendor selection
With the implementation of the new system, Cadburys initially faced some efficiency problems but in time the company managed to increase the new implemented system’s efficiency.
Initially due to some IT problems the company manufactured excess chocolate bars that costed the company over 12 million dollars in damage. After Cadbury chose the SAP ERP system, the excess build-up of the Cadbury bars resulted in warehouses packed with excess chocolates at the beginning of the year. This was a direct blowback to the level of efficiency that the company was expecting. The company was planning on saving 520 million dollars in expense but it backfired.
In time, the efficiency of production improved in the factory (Harwood 2017). As Cadburys was planning on a fast paced growth, the company desperately needed to improve their existing system to decrease inefficiencies. The new SAP ERP adopted by the company helped to increase the business efficiencies of several in house departments and helped the company to maintain track of its growth considering all the variables of the market scenario. The ERP system allowed Cadburys to improve their branched structure of their depots and offices and improve their processes of warehouse management system. Although the implementation system was time consuming, the following implementations proved to be a lot cheaper and took less time to implement which boosted the savings of Cadburys during the implementation phase. The new system allows the company to reconstruct the internal processes of the company which was being pointed out by concerned stakeholders for a long time. Cadburys also developed a better customer service feedback system with the new system as it helped the company to monitor changes and assess if the company is proceeding with the initial plan or not. The cross functional implementation of the new ERP system allowed the company to increase their business efficiencies. Moreover, SAP ERP system is a renowned vendor which was chosen by Cadburys after initial research and this bonus advantage allowed the company to complete the implementation phase without any issues in a streamlined manner. The system also provided Cadbury with a vendor connected portal which allowed the company to monitor the inventory movement and accordingly make decisions.
In short, despite the initial issues, Cadbury was able to improve its system efficiency with the implementation of the SAP ERP system.
Companies which have implemented ERP systems like Cadburys face potential data breaches and security risks on a daily basis. Some of them are written as follows:-
Three ways ERP can be used for business efficiency
Cyber-attacks
Cyber-attacks have been the most generally perceived risks in the arrangement of the association. There are distinctive occasions of Cyber attacks in the affiliation. Distinctive ruinous contaminations and malwares can attack the framework server of the association and cause Cyber-attacks.
DDoS attack
A denial of service attack is an attack that game plans with shutting down of framework server of the association. This attack may close down a machine or a server forever by hurting the architecture (Shaul and Tauber 2013). It focuses in the private data and information of the relationship in the market. This may reduce check estimation of the association in the market.
Phishing
This attack centers on the personal information of the customers including the username, passwords, dealing with a record information and other individual information. This attack is essentially completed with the help of spam messages that are sent to the customers. Exactly when the customers open that spam mail. All the login capabilities are sent to the software engineers. This can be a perilous or the association, as there are different sends are gotten on their mail id.
Cloud attacks
Cloud computing have been a creating development wherever all through the world. All around, most of the association are keeping up and securing their data over the cloud. Along these lines, diverse software engineers that have concentrating on cloud for breaking out data and information (Ruivo et al. 2013). The attacks in the cloud have been an inconceivable impact in the headway of the association. Cloud attacks have been consistent over the web as by far most of the associations are open in the cloud.
To mitigate the mentioned risks, some recommendations are written as follows that can be taken up by companies who are planning to incorporate ERP systems like Cadburys:-
- The data security factor – As the ERP system that was chosen by Cadburys was cloud based, the security of information always remains a concern. If one of the modules of the organization is compromised, the attacker can violate the entire system as all the business processes are linked in the same ecosystem. Moreover, the attacker can be an ex-employee of the company and can potentially leak personal information of the company. Cadburys need to properly implement security principles to safeguard data secrecy, availability, correctness and traceability.
- Architectural problems- Cloud ERP system suffer from the same architectural problems that are faced by traditional ERP systems with modules. The integration problems need to be properly checked by Cadburys to prevent mismanagement of data. Cadburys also need to check the multitenancy issues of cloud ERP systems.
- Authentication and authorization – Cadbury needs to monitor its in house employees to prevent the loss of critical information like employee passwords and login IDs. Sometimes, when an employee leaves the organization, companies forget to remove the authentication of that particular employee from the system (Ahmad, M.M. and Cuenca, 2013). This advantage can be taken up by the employee to conduct malicious activities on the system. Cadburys need to manage a proper monitoring system and assign the right employees with the right amount of authentication controls.
Conclusion
To conclude the report, it can be stated that the proper ERP system implementation in a company has been explained along with the analysis of the implemented technology. The report has conclusively described the advantages of ERP technology in improving the business functions of an organization. The different typed of process of choosing a correct ERP vendor has been evaluated. Although ERP technology has a lot of advantages in improving the business efficiency of organizations, it has its own share of disadvantages. In the report, several reasons due to data and security breaches on this prospective technology has been evaluated and discussed. Several recommendations have been provided that can counter this issues efficiently
References
Ahmad, M.M. and Cuenca, R.P., 2013. Critical success factors for ERP implementation in SMEs. Robotics and computer-integrated manufacturing, 29(3), pp.104-111.
Harwood, S., 2017. ERP: The implementation cycle. Routledge.
Leon, A., 2014. Enterprise resource planning. McGraw-Hill Education
Malaurent, J. and Avison, D., 2015. From an apparent failure to a success story: ERP in China—Post implementation. International Journal of Information Management, 35(5), pp.643-646.
Morschett, D., Schramm-Klein, H. and Zentes, J., 2015. Strategic international management (pp. 978-3658078836). Springer.
Nagpal, S., Khatri, S.K. and Kumar, A., 2015, May. Comparative study of ERP implementation strategies. In Systems, Applications and Technology Conference (LISAT), 2015 IEEE Long Island (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
Negi, T. and Bansal, V., 2013. A Methodology to Bridge Information Gap in ERP Implementation Life Cycle. International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (IJEIS), 9(2), pp.70-82.
Ptak, C.A. and Schragenheim, E., 2016. ERP: tools, techniques, and applications for integrating the supply chain. Crc Press.
Ruivo, P., Oliveira, T., Johansson, B. and Neto, M., 2013. Differential effects on ERP post-adoption stages across Scandinavian and Iberian SMEs. Journal of Global Information Management (JGIM), 21(3), pp.1-20.
Shaul, L. and Tauber, D., 2013. Critical success factors in enterprise resource planning systems: Review of the last decade. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 45(4), p.55.
Sustainment, A., 2014. Enterprise Resource Planning.
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