Enterprise Resource Planning: The Exclusive Resort Case Analysis

Today Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is extensively adopted by many organizations regardless of kind and size, mainly because it provides enterprise-wide view of information across all their business operations and help organizations achieve consistency across all their functional departments. The potential benefits of ERP system implementation include improved coordination across functional areas, increased efficiency, reduced operational costs, rapid access to information for decision making, managerial control and support for strategic planning.

Making decision of what to select between “best of breed” and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are never easy. There are many controversy or chaos issues surrounds this thought and debate. Which one is better? What factors need to be considered? This paper will address the difference between “best of breed” and ERP System that needs to be considered, such as the definition, advantages and disadvantages each of them.

ERP systems are designed for better longevity and claim to offer numerous options representing best practices. These attributes make an ERP system implementation very desirable but, at the same time, complex and expensive. Unfortunately many large companies rush into ERP system implementation projects, because of competitive pressures (Teltumbde, 2000). Cisco's

Enterprise resource planning enables firms to replace different departmental information systems and database silos with systems that collectively work as a single cross functional database. ERP systems are available for every key business function such as order processing, production control, HR, warehouse, marketing, finance and much more. By having a common technology and database platform throughout the firm, systems and processes from various departments can be integrated that achieve superiority in terms of enhanced cost, operational and productivity benefits. Implementing an ERP system requires careful planning to achieve the targeted benefits and minimize the risk of project failure.

The object of this research paper is to describe the implementation challenges of an enterprise system, then to analyze the changes required in its implementation and discuss the advantages of ERP over legacy systems. Some of the informational background will be discussed in this paper regarding enterprise resource planning systems. This paper will construct some examples from my research findings to show why ERP has advantages over legacy systems. This paper will also not only provide strengths of having an enterprise system, but will show weaknesses as well. And to conclude, this paper will explain why and how enterprise systems will be of benefit for organizations and business with decision-making processes.

In case study III-4, titled “ERP Purchase Decision at Benton Manufacturing Company, Inc.,” describes in detail what a major manufacturing company experiences while considering a substantial investment with the implementation of an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. Among the company’s management personal opinions vary, some doubt the need of such a system while others support and justify the expense. The question at hand; whether or not to implement a costly system with a lengthy transitioning phase? In his attempt to answer this question, Walter McHenry, CEO and President of Benton Manufacturing has formed a two man team to investigate and further

Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) is the core system of any company. In order to facilitate all departments in a manner to improve issues, there are a few things that must be meet to successfully utilize a software system such as ERP. This allows any member within the company to access a single and centralized data source with information regarding products, services, customers and suppliers (Sadrzadehrafiei, Chofreh, Hosseini, & Sulaiman, 2013). The ability to share and access one software benefits the company to improve in areas such as sales and marketing, customer satisfaction, human resources, operations, and more. In addition, business intelligence tools such as ERP systems provide the techniques and solutions managers need to analyze and understand complex business situations, and simplify decision making processes that is of crucial importance during times of financial and economic crisis (Antoniadis, Tsiakiris, & Tsopogloy, S. 2015). This paper explores the definition and functions of an ERP system and the successes and costs of implementation.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an enterprise system that serves as the technological backbone of many businesses today. Through a framework of integrated software modules, ERP provides employees and managers with real-time data across business units. For businesses that have successfully implemented ERP, the benefits can be amazing. Significant improvements in quality, efficiency, decision support, along with decreased costs and enterprise agility, are all tremendous benefits to any business. Those benefits don’t come without a price. The implementation of an ERP system is an enormous undertaking that can be extremely expensive. Maybe this is the reason IT managers are reluctant to move

Information technologies are becoming an inseparable part of today’s business world.ERP systems is one such example as they have become an important instrument without which the majority of enterprises could no longer function(Pabedinskait,2010).Successfully implemented ERP systems generate organisational synergy, which provides a motivation for the improvement of particularly efficient processes necessary for the success of an organisation. ERP implementation systems have become more popular within the last 15 years. They are now a common way of implementing organisational changes today. Organisations that successfully employ ERP systems, such as software and industry processes have enormous benefits such as greater efficiency. Companies that have succeeded in their respective ERP implementation include Cisco, Tektronix and Harley Davidson Motor Company.

Once a multifaceted corporation or company makes the decision to adopt a particular Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system within their overall operational structure, the planning and implementation phases are simply the beginning of a continuous and constant process of observation, adjustment and analysis. The fields of project management and program management have been developed to direct the ever evolving series of changes and alterations made by an adaptable modern company in concert with the systemic requirements of its ERP system. Although it has been conclusively proven that "an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation can result in a synergistic fusion of marketing, purchase, R&D, production, quality control, distribution and other cross functional activities," throughout a company's hierarchy, "the implementation requires inspecting every link in the operational and decision-making chains and then modifying them to take advantage of the new systems" (Bakht, 2006). By utilizing change control to effectively predict and respond to the thousands of minor adjustments made to an ERP system, a company can mitigate the consequences of scope creep, "happens when changes are requested that are not in the initially defined

by providing numerous ERP solutions. It additionally permits little and medium businesses to act quicker than established, huge competitors.

Before the project went live, the new system was tested to ensure a smooth implementation. However, it revealed that they had done an insufficient depth analysis and information and the ERP system needed to be customized and adjusted to come up to par. Consequently, this was one of the significant factors that made the implementation and launching of the project late.

The Regional express airline identified the need of managing a rapidly, diverse business which was spread across different locations. So, they found that it was very essential to introduce an ERP system for replacing their internally developed bespoke system. It was reported that they have a shortage in the number of pilots, due to which airline

Organizations face numerous challenges to survive in today’s volatile global market. Some of the common challenges are for example - to constantly adapt themselves to the evolution of technology, peer competition, different customer relationship and business cultures in different countries, keeping up to the demanding customer expectations, etc. These challenges faced by global organizations, often help to understand more clearly the approaches that are helping them to thrive as well as precautionary policies or practices designed to lower total costs, shorten throughput times, ensure more dependable delivery dates , superior customer service, quality, and professionally organize global demand, supply, and production. Most of these challenges can be addressed with the help of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. ERP is business process management software, which allows an organization to use a system of integrated applications to manage the business and automate many back office functions related to technology, data warehouse, finance, human resources and other services.

Other business systems that might integrate with our business software applications are Microsoft Dynamics and SAP AG. Microsoft products are familiar software used by many people so Microsoft Dynamics CRM can reduce time required to learn how to use the software. Force.com has a proven real-time integration system that can work well with on-premise applications from Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. The changes in technology today has proven to customers that internet based software is the way to go. Chief Executive, Mark Benioff states that