AMER KADHIM
Student in UMK
Sunday 7 December 2014
Saturday 25 October 2014
Case: Submit Electric Light Up with a New ERP system
Q1. Which business
processes are the most important at Summit Electric Supply? Why?
There
are several business processes that were used by the Summit Electric Supply company.
Among them the important ones are: 1) ERP software from SAP-> Scalability
and investors visibility was the two factors most important to the company and
both these factors were very well tackled by the ERP software. SAP
functionality in sales and distribution, materials management and financials
greatly benefited the company to boost its distribution capacity. 2) SAP’s
NetWeaver BW – For Business Intelligence reporting and analysis this process
was used. This helped the company to evaluate the profitability of its sales
channels, using what-if solutions. 3) The “Batch management” process- Wires and
cable are Summit most important product category. It buys these products in
reels of length 5000 feet and then cuts them into various lengths and sells to
the customers which make it difficult to maintain the inventory of this
product. The batch management process removed the problem of maintaining the
inventory of such products.
Q2. What problems did Summit have with its old
systems? What was the business impact of problems?
There were a few problems that Summit went
through with when they were using the old legacy systems. Some of the few
problems they came across were--- The old system caused them to have delay with
their supplies. Also the system was complicated as it would separate different
categories of products which eventually was difficult to combine when needed.
The business impact from the problems was that the system was not able to keep
up with the fast growing business. It limited the business as it was only able
to handle a few range of numbers and location at a time.
Q3: How did Summit’s ERP system
improve operational efficiency and decision making? Give several examples.
ERP
improved operational efficiency and give scalability and the ability in
Summit’s business process, especially in supply chain areas like sales and
distribution, inventory management and financial reporting system-as the
company expected strong growth in these areas.
Running more frequent inventory updates
It’s
running smaller and frequent inventory update throughout the day, instead of a
night-which caused a delay. New system provided accurate information of
shipping order, which Summit’s was able to ship immediately.
Adapting the inventory tracking process
To
replenish wire and cable, the ERP batch material management identified the
customer purchase amount, length of wire and product manufacturer. Each time a
customer buys a length of wire, the length is entered into the system to track
how much of the “batch” was sold.
Changing how inventory is managed at job sites
To
secure inventory for special customers, with long term projects, Summit created
a “parent- child” warehouse relationship in ERP system to secure the materials
in inventory as well as on premises.
Business intelligence
To
make a better manage its finance and ordering system, Summit implemented the
SAP’s/NetWeaver BW data warehouse and business intelligence. By integrating the
NetWeaver, Summit was able to analyze the profit of each sales person, manufacturer,
customer and branch. Using SAP software, Summit was able to improve its ROI, by
automating sales tax and chargeback’s. The SAP/Paybacks and Chargeback’s
application was able to identify the billing activity, if there was a
chargeback, the SAP system would automatically submit the information to bill
the chargeback- increase its chargeback claims of up to 118%. Summit decision
making for implementing the new ERP system was based on the growth of the
organization, the complexities of processing orders, analyzing finances and
back and reporting. Once the new ERP/SAP was in place, Summit management was
able to focus on sales and orders and quotes, supplier performance and delivery
schedule. The new SAP/ERP has allowed Summit to run its operations with flexibility
and allow the SAP to operate efficiently. The new ERP system allowed management
to have a greater vision for decision making and managing its operations.
Q4: Describe two ways
in which Summit’s customers benefit from the new ERP system.
Firstly,
customer can rely on the company for their needs and products- the company now
more efficient. The company wants that customers to feel that they can provide
that they have produced products the customer want and sent to them in short
time period.
Second
is to accommodate large customers with long term job sites. SES sets up
temporary warehouse on site to supply these customers with its electrical
products. Create “parent – child” warehouse relationship to be able to work
with customers. If the SES office has more than a few temporary onsite warehouses,
the warehouse can be controlled like subparts of the main SES warehouse. It
helps to prevent anybody from selling the consigned inventory into the
warehouse.
Q5: Diagram Summit’s
old and new process for handling chargebacks.
Chargeback
is the return of funds to a consumer. The chargeback mechanism exists primarily
for consumer protection. For the distribution company, chargeback occurs when
the supplier sells a product at a higher price to the distributor than the
price they have set with the end user.
Old process
For
handling charger backs had flaws in it where the company was losing money and
sometime barely making any profit. Processing chargeback has to compare the
sale to contract. A distributor can have up to hundreds maybe thousands of
contract. SES need to identify the chargeback and which manufacturer with
enough documentation of the contract or a lot of manual work. SES need go
through the customers invoice with detailed manufacturers identified and put
the chargeback in Microsoft Excel.
New process
For
handling chargebacks had flaws more efficient. It automatically reviews
Summit’s billing activity for the day. All chargebacks agreements loaded in the
SAP system by the end of every day. There is a match in the system and they are
able to claim. New process is able to create a separate chargebacks document
outside the customer invoice and able to process more quickly with review in
the same day. SES increased its claim by 118% over the old system.
Case: Customer Relationship Management Heads to the Cloud
Q1. What types of companies are most
likely to adopt cloud-based CRM software services? Why? What companies might
not be well-suited for this type of software?
Types
of companies that are most likely to adopt cloud-based ERP and CRM software services
are small to midsize companies that lack the knowledge about ERP and CRM. Companies
that are struggling with lots of data, using too many systems to perform
business functions and would like to cut cost are also companies that are most
likely to adopt cloud-based ERP and CRM software services. These companies
adopt cloud-based ERP and CRM software services because they want to achieve
operational excellence and customer intimacy. Besides that, it releases the
companies from infrastructural maintenance and its respective fixed (servers,
storage, networking components) and operational cost. Operational ubiquity is
also one of the reasons the companies would want to adopt cloud-based ERP and
CRM software services. Moreover, it allows them to subscribe and cancel the
subscription without losing large up-front software licenses and hardware
investments. Companies that might not be well-suited for this type of software
are companies that are concern about security issues. In addition, companies
that are concern about control of their data are also not well-suited for this
software. Moreover, large companies that had made huge investments on
traditional and customized software that already work will also not be
well-suited for this software.
Q2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of
using cloud-based enterprise application?
One
of the advantages of using cloud-based enterprise applications is availability.
These services are accessible irrespective of anything given that there is
internet connection. Another advantage is it is environmental friendly. Users
who uses cloud-based enterprise applications gets to reduce electricity
expenses. Through saving electricity, the users also save on resources to cool
off computer and its component. Besides that, it has higher security. Clouds
tend to be more secure than traditional business models because clouds offer
real-time backup which results in less data loss. Moreover, it is easy to
expand and uses fewer resources. Users can immediately access more resources if
they need to expand their business.
Advantages
|
Disadvantages
|
Cost Efficiency: This is the biggest
advantage of cloud computing, achieved by the elimination of the investment
in stand-alone software or servers.
|
Security and privacy
in the Cloud: Security is the biggest concern when it comes to cloud computing.
|
Backup and Recovery: The process of backing
up and recovering data is simplified since those now reside on the cloud and
not on a physical device.
|
Limited control and
flexibility: Since the applications and services run on remote, third party
virtual environments, companies and users have limited control over the
function and execution of the hardware and software
|
Increased Storage
Capacity: The cloud can accommodate and store much more data compared to a
personal computer and in a way offers almost unlimited storage capacity.
|
Increased
Vulnerability: Related to the security and privacy mentioned before, note that
cloud based solutions are exposed on the public internet and are thus a more
vulnerable target for malicious users and hackers.
|
Dependency and vendor lock-in: One of the major
disadvantages of cloud computing is the implicit dependency on the provider.
|
Q3: What people, organization
and technology issues should be addressed in deciding whether to use a
conventional CRM system versus a cloud-based version?
People
will provide firm wide information to support decision making. They also will
enable rapid responses to customer requests for information or products.
Besides, removing hardware and its complications are companies not suited for
ERP and CRM. People also can made large investments on traditional and
customized solutions that already work.
In
an organization, the Human-Resource Optimization will act as while traditional
ERP and CRM solutions demand for technical staff, cloud-based solutions allows optimizing
HR to focus on operation. In technology for security: using the web as
infrastructure, cloud-based ERP and CRM solutions have difficulties in offering
security-comfort to companies that own sensible data. Besides, seeks to cut
cost Companies That Use Cloud Based ERP and CRM Services: it enables them to
achieve operational excellence and customer intimacy. It releases them
from infrastructure.
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