Week 8 blog

Q.1 Using Sumner (2005), answer questions 1 and 3 on pages 97 – 98.

Week 10 blog

Q.2 Using Sumner (2005), read the article on pages 149 – 150. Answer the following: a. What aspects of BI have been employed in this case example? b. What would you expect to be the challenges facing the development of a BI approach for such a large organisation? c. Would Dow Corning be a suitable candidate for a shared services approach using an ASP? Justify and argue your answer

Following on from the previous week develop a rough outline of your presentation. Post this rough outline to your blog.

Post an entry to your blog that answers the following questions:

What was the most difficult assessment item you completed so far in COIS12073 this term?

What was difficult about it and how would you suggest it could be improved?

If you could provide three (3) pieces of advice to a student who will be doing this course next term what would they be?

How will you be able to use this knowledge/these skills in your future career?

A)     Dow Corning Corp has employed aspects of business intelligence through integrating their global business process by implementing a “Basic ERP backbone”. This means replacing the current legacy systems that are running on mainframes and incorporate R/3 SAP AG which will enhance the capabilities of the business intelligence.

B)      As with all large and diverse companies, ensuring that the implementation phase is as well planned out as possible and that plan followed will be a challenge. As the amount of users and variety of different types of applications used throughout the business will increase the likely hood of problems, this detracting from the potential benefits of the business intelligence.

C)       

 

Difficult project

By far the most difficult project of the course would the Case study, as it required a high level of research and reading to form ideas and arguments to properly argue the case, added to that it had a 5000 word limit making it the largest assignment of the course.

What I found difficult was finding relevant journal references to help support my argument, while I did find some useful journals that did help my argument they didn’t contain as much detailed information as I was hoping.

The 3 pieces of advice I would give to students who will do this course next term would be to try and keep up with the required reading as much as possible to help give as much knowledge about the subject and better prepare you for the assessment. The second would be that the assessment pieces require more time to complete as they do need thorough research to achieve a satisfactory mark. The final piece of advice would be try and find real life examples of the topics in the course to gain a better understanding of them, this will help you better prepare your arguments in your assessments pieces.

This course has given me a good grounding of knowledge about the benefits and problems of ERP systems, and as many businesses around the world make use of ERP it will valuable knowledge to prepare me for working in an industry that makes use of ERP or if I have any involvement in the implementation of an ERP, I will at least I will know of some of the dangers of implementing them.

 

Presentation Outline:

I will be arguing that the university has spent too much time and money on this project to give up now and that with better management of the project the ERP can be salvaged and made a beneficial asset to the university.

To justify this argument i will need explain why the ERP will be beneficial to the univeristy and if these benefits are worth the risks of a second attempt. I will also need to identify the problems that have lead to failure and how these problems can be corrected to ensure that this time the project will be successful.

My powerpoint should helpful include useful information and data such as graphs to support my finding in great detail.

Week 9

Q.3 What external factors (non-implementation project related) could affect how and when an ERP goes live? Explain and justify.

Have a look at assignment 5 Search the web or go to some other source to find some hints and tips on giving presentations. Post to your blog what you think was the most helpful and why.

Once the project team is happy that all phases haven’t been completed and all goals achieved, the final step for the project is to have system Go-live. This step is one of the most suspenseful times for the project team as they will be witnessing either the successful completion of their long and hard work or the bitter reality of failure, with a long road of more hard work to find and correct the problems causing the system to fail. Though the factors that can lead to a delay of the system going live can also be external to the project team, these external factors are:

·         clients,

·         users

·         unforeseeable events – power failure

·         suppliers/vendors and

·         governments

With all new systems it can take time for users understand how to use the system to gain the most benefits from their new system. Some users make take longer in learning how to use the system or may encounter problems along the way that they are unprepared for, these users may have to be re-trained, and this of course can take time to successful complete and will result in time and productivity lost from having to re-learn.

It doesn’t take much for a client to change their mind on some of the features of a system or are not satisfied with the current system and therefore may ask for changes or improvements to the system before going live, similarly with government implementation new policies or laws, particularly with taxes that aren’t catered for in the current system and going live will need to be delayed so the project team can add the changes.

ERPs rely heavily on system support from vendors and suppliers, lack of proper support can lead to problems becoming increasingly frequent and damaging resulting in a delay for going live until the proper support is available.

Most of these external factors cannot be helped but companies should plan appropriately for the possibility of some form of delay along the way, as it would be unwise to be believed that any project is immune to problems internal or external.

 

Presentation Ideas:

Don’t over fill your powerpoints with unneccessary information

use powepoint to give visual support to your speech not take attention away from what you are saying.

 

powerpoints are one of the most poorly used presentation assets, therefore I should make sure I try to use my powerpoint effectively.

Week 7 Blog

Q.3 Imagine that in the ERP implementation you are involved with, users that are reluctant to get involved with phase 2. What issues, problems and risks, both short and long term, does this present?

 

Phase 2 is where ideas and theories are transformed practices and results it is time to plan in detail how the package is going to work for the company. Where the system is tested to see if it gives the desired results, to determine how effective the system is. If there are any problems or unforeseen results arise from the test, in this phase solutions must be developed.  Having the many different users involved in the step helps implementation process greatly and the long term

Reluctance by users is not uncommon in implementation on a new system but can be damaging to a successful implementation as it creates problems between users who feel that the others aren’t being helpful or supportive to the project. Users experience and suggestion which could have been useful to the project will go unheard if they do not participate in phase 2.

Users who show reluctance in understanding system may also be less than enthusiastic in learning about the system and how it works, meaning that forms of training or information seminars could be wasted on them and lead to more problems down the tracks as the user has resisted getting to know the system.

With these problems caused by the reluctance of some users, valuable knowledge is not shared between users for, resistance to learning how to make use of the system could delay work goals and cost the business money and place more undue pressure on the other users of the system. While there is no easy way of getting all users to see that getting involved with the system from the beginning is best for all concerned, management should do all it can to try and convince or encourage users to try and help out where possible and not be discourage by change, or else the business could lose out big time.