Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Implementation †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Implementation. Answer: Introduction Enterprise resource planning is a software management tool that is used in managing and organizing various activities in business. This software is mainly used to facilitate the day-to-day activities of the organization through an integrated system of data. This system helps in managing functions such as human resources, technology, sales and customer services. This system helps to create a database where all the reports of the organization are keyed, and employees can retrieve this reports from one place in the system (Herzmann 2008). It breaks barriers in the organization within the different sections thus assisting employees to be productive in their work performance. These systems are advantageous to the way the organization works and its success output. These advantages include offering transparency in data which enables companies to make substantial improvements, reducing risks by meeting all the financial regulatory factors and enhancing customer service management (Kurbel 201 3).This report explores the implementation of the ERP systems in the organization. It looks into who the stakeholders are in the process of the implementation and the issues surfacing them. There is the outline of the steps involved in the ERP implementation process. During the implementation of the ERP systems, establishing and identifying stakeholders is every crucial step in the ERP implementation process. This report examines the stakeholders management, identification, and categorization. ERP systems have some impacts on the shareholders in the organization. During the implementation process, the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders are reevaluated. Thus, the organization needs to keep a close eye on all its stakeholders to manage them more efficiently. Monitoring can best be achieved through looking into the stakeholders synergy and way of communication. For a successful ERP implementation to take place, an organization needs to know the broad range of stakeholder of the organization and their interests to effectively manage them through this software (De Marco 2012). Stakeholders involved in the ERP system implementation process are categorized into four divisions. These are the ultimate consumers, InfoTech staff, external individuals, and the management. Final consumers Final consumers are made of employees in the organization and business customers. These are the end users of the systems in the organization. These ultimate consumers have a lot of knowledge on all the processes that take place in the organization. During the implementation process, a lot of this knowledge on the processes in the organization needs to be feed into the ERP system (Tarique 2016). This makes the ultimate consumers, very important stakeholders in the implementation process. For the success of the ERP system in the organization, the ultimate consumers need to have a high level of understanding and a lot of involvement in the activities of the business. End users need to be very active in the organization. Employees need to be more involved in the business and the system. Involvement reduces employee turnover and motivates the employees to stick with the organization (Zaveri 2009). These last users require undergoing a lot of training on how to use the ERP System in the or ganization, to have the expertise of using the software in the performance of business activities. Learning how to use these systems help employees to be able to communicate effectively with other stakeholders in the organization on matters pertaining the organization. On the other hand, customers are important to end users because they have become more active in the business activities and their demands on products and costs have become more demanding. This software helps these customers to choose what they want in the organization and enhance their relationship with the management. According to a survey by the Taiwanese Organization, it reported that the organization offered better services after the ERP System was implemented (Yeh et Al 2005). This survey, however, was too quick to pinpoint that the company did not consider the consumers feedback after the implementation. This is the major issue surfacing the end users, mostly the consumers. Organizations fail to involve the customers in the implementation of ERP systems. In every implementation of ERP systems, the customers should be put into the equation. This is because when an implementation is successful, the profit margins in the organization rise, these is due to the impact it has on the customers. On the other hand, a failed system results to reduced profits and loss of customers who look for an alternative. In enhancing the relationship with customers when implementing an ERP system, an organization needs to communicate to employees on the changes they are about to make. This involves the marketing department informing customers through their websites and other channels used to reach to them. These give the customers a sense of belonging to the organization and an urge to retain their loyalty to the organization. This will involve informing customers on what the system entails, how it will work. The benefits the system is likely to accrue to the organization and its customers. One example of an ERP system is the Customer Relationship Management (Maleki and Anand 2008).This software is used in the management of customers and in acquiring a competitive advantage in the market. Recently, most organizations have adopted these ERP systems and realized an improved impact of customers from the previous times. InfoTech specialists Another stakeholder in the implementation of ERP is the information technology staff. These people are in charge of the technology in the implementation. These include both internal InfoTech and outsourced staff. These stakeholders are important because they help to maintain the systems as well as train the organization entire staff on how to use these systems. The internal InfoTech staff contributes to acquire feedback from the ultimate consumers and give the information to outsourced IT staff who feed the information into the ERP software. The outsourced staff is involved in fixing and configuring the systems with the organization data. They are also crucial in maintaining these systems and updating them in the organization whenever possible (Heidelberg et al 2014). The external specialist is the second most important when it comes to achieving success in the implementation process of ERP. They face issues of communication and conflicts in the organization. According to research done on the success of the ERP project in Taiwanese Organization, it portrays that consultants who can overcome issues in communication and training employees, ensure an efficient outcome in the ERP project. Communication is the major problem, especial to external parties, who are aliens in the organization. The members of the organization may not be willing to ogre well with their training because they feel that, they are more skilled than they are. This unresponsiveness from employees is what external consultants seek to overcome to able to work together with the members of the organization. Consultants, who manage this, can implement the software successfully. A lot of corporation from other stakeholders is what is essential. On the other hand, these consultants may not be willing to support this project to the last step. This affects the implementation process negatively. Another issue is the lack of understanding of the organization clients thus he or she is not able to offer a suitable solution in line with those needs. This happens in the case of an external specialist failing to understand the organizational culture and the needs of the organization. This leads to a project that does not serve the purpose it is intended to and brings less help to the organization. However, the management may play a role is making consultants to underperform. Most of the time, the management of an organization, employs the external specialist on industrial bases, but this external staff needs to be a drive to the members of the organization to achieve the intended purpose. These external specialists should have one more goal of ensuring that the employees in the organization conform to the changes brought about by the implementation of the ERP system. They should assist in helping every member to learn how to use it. For instance, a Mexican Organization implemented an ERP system, but it failed to achieve the purpose because the organization did not assume the change the system brought about, and the external specialists did not drive the members of the company in conforming to change (Lytras and Ordonez 2009). InfoTech staff may either lead to the success of failure of the organization. These primary stakeholders turn a system into a success by being able to learn the members of the organization and enhancing the communication channels. This helps all the people in the organization to get a clear understanding of what the system entails and how it works. These stakeholders will determine if the other stakeholders in the organization understand what the organization entails. The Management This the most crucial important stakeholder when it comes to ERP system implementation. It comprises of the managers of the ERP venture. These managers monitor the implementation process through the organization. The pilot committee of the ERP program is also part of the management. The pilot committee helps to drive the energy among the organization members to get involved in the ERP implementation process. The management in the ERP implementation process aims at offering enough support of the systems in the organization and education the employees on the importance of this project and the benefits it will accrue the organization as well as the employees ( Sridhar Saha 2008). This support helps to create trust and belief in the system among other employees. The management should ensure that all the data needed for the configuration of the system is accessible to the InfoTech team and ensure that all members have access to all the training carried out to offer guidance on the team. The management should be available from the beginning of the project to the end of it, to ensure everything runs out smoothly. Various issues affect the management. The ERP project managers face a various issue in the organization. According to Gotzmani and Longinidis (2009), in their research argued that these managers are faced with an issue of planning and organization. Managers need to have a work schedule and plan ahead of the process and generating objectives required in the project. They also need to ensure that the structures needed in the implementation process are in order before the implementation process. The managers may be faced with problems in making decision regarding the preparing of the ERP implementation process ahead. Managers need to have a strong will in making decisions and to be able to have control over other stakeholders. This way, he or she can manipulate control over them. ERP venture managers are the most important stakeholders to consider during the ERP implementation process. They are the core holders of the success of the ERP venture. They are involved in the overall performance, from creating a schedule, validating field details prior and instilling trust in the organization members on the system. These managers are involved in critics from the rest of the members who doubt the information they give. Thus, they should be compelling enough to avoid conflicts of interest in the organization. External merchant individuals These comprise of the vendors. These people develop and supply this ERP software but are not involved in the implementation process. These external individuals play a role in establishing and coming up with this system. Organizations lack these skills thus for the vendors; they benefit the organization by helping in developing the system in the organization that will help in performance and monitoring of data in the organization. This external party also offers consultation services on the software on how it functions and operations. They are involved in offering the Information Technology skills required by the internal InfoTech staff and any other guidance on this software. They are important stakeholders who offer up-to-date information on the system( Pesqueux 2007). These system suppliers to the organization are important stakeholders when it comes to the ERP implementation process. First, these vendors help an organization to cut on costs by enabling them to use their establishi ng technological tools in these systems. They are various issues that surface the organizational vendors. The first is the full collaboration of the vendor with the organization. This partnership helps the supplier to be able to develop a system that caters to all the needs of the organization. An organization should be very careful in choosing a trusted vendor in order to avoid risks with the ERP system. The most preferred vendors are other organizations. Organizations are more likely to have developed other systems for companies, have the high skilled personnel and have a rich source of knowledge on the development aspect. Merchants are important stakeholders in determining the success of an ERP system. They can either influence positively or negatively .organizations should not allow suppliers to have too much control of the system in the organization, this is because the organization may fail to realize the full potential of the system on their own (Teo et al. 2009). In managing the suppliers in the organization, an ER system known as the Supply Chain Management is used together with Enterprises Resource Planning. This system helps to improve communication with merchants with a smooth flow of information and planning of products. The ERP software enhanced the performance of Supply Chain Management. Realizing the role and benefits of this stakeholders in the organization helps to configure their information into the system and have it implemented by the InfoTech staff. All these stakeholders are involved in one way or the other in the ERP implementation process. For the successful implementation of the software, the full support and involvement of these stakeholders are required. However, there is need to realize which stakeholders are the most important to the project and those that are less important. This involves carrying out an examination of their needs and their roles in the project. This way, one can choose the important stakeholders from the many, and those who will have a positive impact in the ERP venture. They are various issues that affect the stakeholders in their performance in the implementation process of the Enterprise Resource Planning systems. These issues surface the ERP project. For instance, the different stakeholders may differ in their level of respect towards the organization or different levels interest in getting involved with the organization ERP implementation process. These issues determine which stakeholders gives more importance to the ERP project. For instance, in the case study, carried out by the Hewart -Packard organization, the project managers placed more importance on the project more than the employees did. Some of the employees showed a lot of disinterest in the project and even gave no attention to the training offered. When analyzing stakeholders, organizations should realize the importance of all the stakeholders. In the ERP implementation process, no stakeholder should be ignored. Stakeholders have different significance to the ERP project, and thus, they should all be explored. These speakers portray differences in the perceptions, interests, and their ideas (Rozanski 2014). This could lead to an organization having a rich platform of ideas that would enable making meaningful decisions in the organization. However, these differences could result in conflicts affecting the implementation process. In every organization, stakeholders also think of their self-interests first, and that is the more reasons as to why the organization should tune this stakeholder to the interests of the organization. Satisfaction of all the stakeholders is a key aspect in achieving positive feedback from them in any project. For an organization to be able to come to identify this stakeholder, largely impacts on the succ ess of the organization because by doing so, the organization can realize factors that affect the organization and using this chance to tune in the stakeholders to the success of the team. Stakeholders are the sources of information, and thats why in the implementation process, they are key to be able to learn from them on what to configure. Conclusion As seen from the above, stakeholders are the most important aspects when it comes to implementing the ERP project. It is a people project because it cannot do without considering the ideas and impacts of the stakeholders in the organization. Stakeholders are identified and categorized into four groups. According to each categorization, some shareholders under it make substantial impacts. These stakeholders determine the success and failure of an ERP process. They determine if the system makes progress in the organization or it is just a generic project. The organization has a huge duty in managing the stakeholders of the organization through motivating and creating relationships with them so that they can appreciate any changes that the system software brings. The key to maintaining a healthy stakeholders group is motivating them and meeting their need for the organization. The manager of the organization is the most important stakeholder in the implementation process. The reasons be hind this are, they form the core foundation of how this ERP system will be implemented. The way managers handle this, also determine how the other stakeholders are likely to receive the implementation and their level of involvement. There are issues that stakeholders are faced with when it comes to the application process. Stakeholders are different, and so are their issues. Their interests, as well as the organization, determine the behavior of these stakeholders. The relationship between the organizational management and its stakeholders determine the positive or negative impacts on the organization. Thus, it is clear that stakeholder way of accepting change brought about by Enterprise Resource Planning is entirely determined by the way the organization manages them. One aspect that is clear is that for the successful implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning project is to involve all the stakeholders in the process. They are important aspects in determining its performance. References Brook Lapping Productions, (2008), Key stakeholders. [London], Teachers TV/UK Dept. of Education. Available at https://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?EDIV;1742978. De Marco, M 2012, Information Systems: Crossroads for the organization, management, accounting, and engineering; ItAIS: The Italian Association for InformationSystems. 18th ed. 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