Successful implementation of ERP Systems: issues and obstacles

Introduction Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) remainss are packaged ( but customizable) software program applications, which manage data from variant institutional activities and provide a fully integrated solution to major organizational data way problems. It integrates all data and processes of an organization into angiotensin converting enzyme star and centralized system. These systems comprise of many components of hardware and software, in order to achieve integration from various de areaments in the organization. With the developing of new technologies its an essential part of their long-term competitive strategy. ERP software applications can be used to manage product supplying, purchase, inventory, interacting with suppliers, customer relationship worry service, and order tracking.Discussion Enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages touch many aspects of a companys internal and external operations. Consequently, successful deployment and use of ERP systems are deprecative to organizational performance and survival. This paper presents the results of a study of the problems and outcomes in ERP, a purpose which was conducted under the sponsorship of an ERP systems vendor. Enterprise systems (or enterprise resource planning systems ERP) have been instrumental in advancing efficiency in organizations through and throughoutthe world.However, David Hebert of the Hackett Group stated, Only a select few companies have gotten value out of their ERP performances, and those are world-class companies. Many companies are radically changing their info engineering science strategies to maintain a competitive advantage, become more responsive to change markets, and deliver better service at lower toll by purchasing off-the-shelf integrated ERP software instead of developing IT systems in-house. 123ERP System Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are software packages that use comparative database technology to integrate various units of an organizations information system. ERP systems provide several damp, but integrated modules, which can be installed as a package for any organization 4. Many large corporations use several different and separate information systems, often because they have merged with and/or acquired other companies with varied systems. An ERP system integrates these separate information systems and results in improved data reliability and processing efficiency.ERP systems quickly became popular with large corporations that needed a seamless integration of their business, but are now frequently used by small to mid-sized companies. The excellent ability of ERP systems to simplify business transaction processing, eliminate work that adds little or no value, and simultaneously improve customer service are the main reasons for the outstanding success and popularity of these systems 5 ERP ModelEnterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are off-the-shelf software packages that support most of the key fu nctions of an enterprise, such as logistics, sales, and financial management. These systems are generic, and the working(a)ity they provide can serve a large variety of enterprises. ERP is a critical strategic tool to achieve business goals. However, ERP adoption is non always successful despite using substantial amount of time and human and clobber resources. To prevent ERP harms, proper adoption processes and selection criteria should be hireed to minimize realistic losses. To explain the ERP Fig Modelin an easily understandable format you have to know to the highest degree the 4ps marketing type. Usually the 4Ps marketing model was a general marketing model where the 4Ps originally stood for people, product, promotion and price 6. Over the years, this model has been changed to become a business model and was modified by replacing promotion and price with process and performance 7. The modified 4P business model was created to architect the ERP Conceptual model because sev eral people working in management are familiar with the concept of the 4Ps.The ERP model is made of 4 components that are implemented through a methodology. This figure demonstrates the integration among the components. Methodology encircles all four of the components to illustrate that each component is addressed and implemented in an integrated manner. 7 8ERP System implementation With the development of new technologies many companies now consider technological improvements an essential part of their long-term competitive strategy, and consequently try to apply these technologies. Computer technology has brought about many benefits in helping the construction industry meet increasingly complex challenges. It has achieved a wide range of successful applications at the cipher level such as engineering design, ensure estimating, scheduling, planning and control, and integrated labour management.H. Klaus and G. Gable analyzed the concept of ERP, in order to explain its origin. Th ey consider that the designation is non related to the role and characteristics of this system. The integrated system of type ERP is not focused on the resource management and it is not very positive within planning area, as its name whitethorn suggest it. It is rather focused on the integration of all organization departments, functions and processes within a unmarried computer informational system, capable of supporting all these areas, with their individual and specific requirements. 8Design of Evaluation Model for ERP System ERP allows employees to share information, query data, and run reports. This eliminates the need to store reduplicate information in more than one place and reduces the amount of work necessary to gather and analyze information9. ERP systems increase efficiency by spillage employees from performing time consuming, manual work. For example, bequest systems often require hours or days to run reports. With ERP, reports can be produced in seconds. These eff iciencies allow employees to spend time on other tasks reducing operating expenses. Heres a proposed military rank design model for ERP system-The proposed ERP evaluation model 8Issues in Implementing ERP A sideslip Study Information technology/systems play a major role in improving the competitiveness of organizations. There are numerous enterprise information software packages available in the market. One of them is enterprise resource planning (ERP). ERP can provide signicant improvements in eciency across a company, but only when implemented correctly. Otherwise, an ERP system could be a curse and drag the whole enterprise into spiraling ineciency.Planning for ERP systems and their implementations requires an integrated approach to meet the requirements of various functional areas. With a brief overview of ERP implementations, this paper describes some experiences of an ERP implementation in a water corporation. The case study reveals some of the intricacies during the plannin g and implementation stages that may get in any company in any part of the world. Suggestions are oered in resolving the issues of implementing ERP.The criteria for success (and failure) Whether a system is branded as a success or a failure is a judgment, usually made at some point in time by one or more people with the benefit of hindsight. Most people, for example, consider that the new system at Heathrow airports Terminal 5 was a failure when it opened in 2008. Now, however, that same system (more accurately, system of systems) is operating successfully with few reported problems on a day-to-day basis.10 The judgment of whether a project has failed is not a simple yes/no decision. It is common for systems that initially did not live up to expectations to evolve over time to deliver useful services. However, management usually regard a project tends as a success if it meets three high-level criteriaIt should be delivered on time It should be delivered within budget It should deli ver the expected functionalityIn addition to these should be added the considerations of the users, to make sure that the system fits in with their everyday working It should be acceptable to the users (and hence used).If a project fails to satisfy one or more of these criteria when it is deployed, it is likely to be labeled a failure. If we closely examine the causes of system failures, we see that most of them are not attributable to failures of the technology. Instead, they are failures of the socio-technical system, often arising because the kindly and organizational aspects either have not been appropriately considered, or have been separated from the technological aspects.It is important that the social and technical aspects of the overall system are developed in parallel, because they are often interdependent. If they are developed separately, any mismatches may not be find until late in the project when they are invariably expensive and time-consuming to correct, and can e ven lead to the project being abandoned.The most important problems of ERP system implementation There are several studies dealing with difficulties in enterprise system implementation. The researchers use different concepts, which have various scopes and meanings. As a result, analyse and integrating their findings is difficult. The number of recognized categories of problems and issues experienced by companies adopting ERP system varies from two through three to five. The identified groups cover issues of various nature and scope, e.g., technical, operational, legal, business/economic, organizational, managerial etc. The respondents opinions regarding the problems observed in ERP system, divided into the described categories, are presented in Table 1. Within each category, various difficulties are listed together with a myopic description. 11Table Problems occurring during ERP system implementation 11 ProblemDetailsOrganizational problems Project goalsLack of clearly defined goa ls of the implementation project incorrectly defined goals need of prioritiesCompanys conditionPoor company organization unclear organizational procedures unclear strategyCommunication Problems with communication and information flow different understanding of the same ideas by different departmentsDecision makingProblems with decision making (e.g., regarding personnel) indecisiveness of company representativesPersonnel availabilityKey employees unavailable workers drop of timeConflicts Conflicts between a companys departments conflicts during organizational changeImplementationMistakes in project management privation of risk management lack of implementation tasks coordinationmanagementOrganizational and ownership changes during the project changes in requirementsChanges in a companychanges in company organizational structure imposed by the introduced systemTrainingInadequate training phase of a project cutting trainingSocial problems Employees association and educationLack of management competence lack of personnel computer literacy lack of knowledge about company operations, enterprise systems and their implementation flower managementLack of top management support and involvement lack of project understanding by top managementImplementation teamLack of implementation team members commitment inadequate composition of implementation team (e.g., too few people, people not empowered to make decisions)MotivationLack of employees motivation to perform implementation tasks and learn new skillsResistance to new systemResistance of middle management, IT staff, and system users people avoiding implementation dutiesResistance to changePeople highly accustomed to live solutions and unwilling to changeProject managerLack of a project manager inadequate person appointed as a project manager necessity of sharing time between implementation tasks and organizational dutiesSystem providers competenceConsultants lacking competence, knowledge, and experience problems wit h the availability of system providers servicesProject acceptancePeople not convinced about the project lack of general acceptance for the project problem with project acceptance by people not involved in implementation dutiesPersonnels fearFear about possible consequences of implementation project loss of job, position, and statusUsers responsibility Lack of responsibility and care among people entering data into the systemTechnical problems DataProblems with completing and organizing system data problems with transferring data from legacy systems to ERP systemSystem efficiencyUsers unable to enter data on-line problems with customer and provider order handlingSystem drawbacksImplementers unaware of programs errors and shortcomings lack of efficient application testing economical problems High beInadequate financial budget for the project loss of financial resources lack of financial flexibility and resource allocationThe problems discovered in Table 1 mention to practically all stakeholders involved in the project employees, implementation team members (who are functional departments managers in enterprise X), and top management representatives. Next, the organizations suffered from the high costs involved and problems connected with goals definition.Conclusion There is no silver bullet that can be used to kill off the potential for failure of ERP system development projects. The proportion of failures remains stubbornly high, even though several of the factors that are associated with failures appear to be known. A quick look at several of theTop 10 style lists of factors associated with failures (and successes) reveals that no two lists are identical, although there are several factors that recur on many lists.The lack of agreement suggests that the analyses of the reasons for failure may be overgeneralising, by treating all failures as being more or less the same, whereas there are really different types of failure that arise through different combinati ons of factors.Reference1. Markus. 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