Benefits of ERP system in IGT
In the year of 2002, A leading manufacturer of slot and lottery machine known as International Game technology (IGT) used to depend on different systems for managing its various departments like sales, customer order and manufacturing (Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini 2015). The biggest drawback of the system was that if an executive wants to know something about the status of a particular order then there was no a single system that could help him. The company contains different systems, where each system was assigned to a particular task (Aloini, Dulmin and Mininno 2012).
To overcome the difficulties, a new software package known as enterprise resource planning (ERP) was launched in the year 2000. This new software includes a set of business application like finance, manufacturing, human resource and distribution. The company badly needed a better cohesive technology that would help in its growth. IGT wanted an application that would provide integration to its business. The accounting department of IGT always wanted a particular system that can manage all the accounting of the company (van Erp, Lotte and Tangermann 2012). On the contrary, the department was more concerned on the fact that if a particular department starts buying its own required software for working then other department would also follow and it would ultimately increase the annual expenditure of the firm (De Courssou et al., 2016).
Later on, a project team was established which has the responsibility of keeping an eye on the functionality of various business. The team has also a function of keeping an ERP packages. The ERP packages were included from JD Edwards, oracle and Sap. After implementing SAP model of the ERP package it proved to provide the best business output. Both the finance and accounting system of Sap has a gap (Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini 2015). SAP model proved to provide financial guidance and modules of foreign currency to the firm (van Erp, Lotte and Tangermann 2012). Later on, in the 2003, IGT was converted into a SAP resource-planning system by using aversion 4.6.ERP helped a lot in integrating the three business domains of product namely finance, manufacturing and development. IGT depended on ERP systems like SAP or Oracle for its front office application (Fokkens et al. 2013).
International Game Technology, which is a leading manufacturer of slot and lottery machine, depends on various systems for managing its various departments like sales, manufacture and accounting (Wotton 2016). This company has a drawback in his system that in order to enquire about the status of a particular product then manager or executive of the department has to go through systems, as there is no particular system assigned for enquiry (Roze, Cook and Jethwa 2014). Later on, IGT implemented ERP in their system. ERP package include JD Edwards, Oracle and SAP. Out of the given models, SAP has been chosen in the accounting and finance system of the firm (Parks 2012).
SAP has a following disadvantage like the firm named IGT has to update the order process in order to keep a track on the way the software works. The biggest drawback of the system is that production team gets the information about the sales order just before the two weeks of the manufacturing. Although SAP has a great configuration and getting all the required information into the respective is not that much easy. The biggest disadvantage is that the user cannot test the every single configuration (Wotton 2016). The installation of ERP system is much costly. The total success of this model depends on the skill and experience of workforce. The efficiency of ERP system decreases if there is some resistance in sharing information between various business units in the organization (Roze, Cook and Jethwa 2014).
Disadvantages of ERP system and Recommendations
SAP model provided many advantages like Employees of IGT could now get the details of their manufacturing sheet at their respective workplace. ERP system helped in stopping the cut, which not possible earlier by the employees. This new system helped in providing few errors and high yield due to better system configuration. This new system helped in establishing a quick output process, which helped in handling the orders. SAP project system is also used for monitoring cost and design changes in launching and developing of products like EZPay, which is used for cashless transaction in the near future. It provides accurate and timely access to important information (Roze, Cook and Jethwa 2014). It eliminates the unnecessary data and operation from the system. It has provided certain advantage like better customer service by reducing response time. It reduces data redundancy as this ERP system follows real time database, which stops duplication in database. It also provided certain advantage to IGT like optimized the control and decision of management (Wotton 2016).
By following these following methods like Executive Buy-in, cultural consideration, Employee engagement, communication and training IGT can handle change management during ERP implementation (Stein 2012). Executive buy in component mainly ensures leadership in every office and region. If the IGT wants a successful ERP system then its employee must follow buy in executive. Cultural consideration like language, demographic difference and education have a vital importance on the certain goals like perceiving and understanding of certain goals, objectives, risks and advantages this ERP project implemented by this ERP project. Organization like IGT should implement employee engagement, which ensures that all the opportunities are captured within their firm. On the contrary, this place is mostly ignored for saving the expenditure of the firm and its benefits are achieved in long run. The added benefits will be required engaging and involving employees. Training of skill and knowledge is very important for execution of the ERP system (Stein 2012).
Communication is another method, which must be taken into account. Employees of IGT should properly understand the reasons behind the adaptation of new ERP system and how it can bring benefit to the organization. After the successful implementation of ERP system, the task characteristic and even job, responsibility of various employees also changes. Communication strategy can be used for change management (Stein 2012). Now change management can be either one-way or two ways. In one-way communication, a particular project can be announced and its status can be updated through internet, posters, newsletters and town hall meetings. On the contrary, two-way communication is beneficial for gaining confidence of their employees and bringing change for them. Communication is proven to solve misunderstanding among various people of an organization. Communication with worldwide ERP project is important but considerably difficult. Emails can be considered as one of the important medium for communication. IGT can use emails as the mode of communication between employees and their manager for keeping updates about the project. IGT should implement training on change management plans to check various new ERP systems and to decide super user and trainers. Now if there are some undeveloped training plans then it can create an impact on the success of various ERP implementation projects (Tarhini, Ammar and Tarhini 2015).
Stakeholder analysis step of ERP implementation helps in deciding the particular stakeholders who will be affected by ERP implementation. This particular analysis helps in judging the involvement of stakeholder and particularly helps in determining the quantity of training they require for their better performance (van Erp, Lotte and Tangermann 2012). The various roles that be defined at this stage are Leader, Super Users, Power Users and end users. Leader has the role to provide direction and alignment to it steam for achieving better work performance. Super Users include SMEs within departments to better understanding the business process of the various departments. Power user mainly consists of user with advanced knowledge of various applications that will keep an eye on the various day-to-day transactions. End user mainly consists of all persons that mainly the system with data (van der Waal 2012).
References
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De Courssou, T.B., Filipour, C.A., Singer, A. and Popovich, A., Igt, 2016. Method and system for time gaming with skill wagering opportunities. U.S. Patent 9,514,596.
Fokkens, A., Van Erp, M., Postma, M., Pedersen, T., Vossen, P. and Freire, N., 2013, August. Offspring from Reproduction Problems: What Replication Failure Teaches Us. In ACL (1) (pp. 1691-1701).
Parks, N.E., 2012, October. Testing & quantifying ERP usability. In Proceedings of the 1st Annual conference on Research in information technology (pp. 31-36). ACM.
Roze, S., Cook, M. and Jethwa, M., 2014. Projection of long term health-economic benefits of sensor augmented pump (SAP) versus pump therapy alone (CSII) in type 1 diabetes, a UK perspective. Value in Health, 17(7), p.A348.
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Tarhini, A., Ammar, H. and Tarhini, T., 2015. Analysis of the critical success factors for enterprise resource planning implementation from stakeholders’ perspective: A systematic review. International Business Research, 8(4), p.25.
van der Waal, M., Severens, M., Geuze, J. and Desain, P., 2012. Introducing the tactile speller: an ERP-based brain–computer interface for communication. Journal of Neural Engineering, 9(4), p.045002.
van Erp, J., Lotte, F. and Tangermann, M., 2012. Brain-computer interfaces: beyond medical applications. Computer, 45(4), pp.26-34.
Wotton, A., Cregan, K.M., Gerrard, P., Ching, E.T., Randall, D.L. and Baerlocher, A.J., Igt, 2016. Gaming device and method for providing wagering for additional symbol functionality and package betting. U.S. Patent 9,483,903.