Author: mon

Don’t Have Easy Access to Information About Business

Employees across company need immediate access to key data. With an ERP solution, executives can get a holistic view of business operations at any time, while other staff can get the information they need to do their jobs more effectively.

Accounting Takes Longer and Is More Difficult

If it takes ages to reconcile financial information across system an ERP solution can make a significant impact. With all financials in single database, accounting staff won’t have to spend hours in reconciling data manually. They will be more productive, freeing them to deliver critical reports without delays.

Sales and Customer Experience Are Suffering

With an ERP system, staff in every department will have access to the same, up-to-the-minute information. Customer-facing reps should be able to answer customers’ questions without having to hang up the phone and check with another department.

IT Is Too Complex, Time-Consuming

One of the biggest downsides of having multiple systems across a business is that IT management can become nightmare. Maintaining these systems with patches and upgrades can be complex, costly. ERP technology can give agility to respond to changing business needs rapidly.

Reference : http://www.workwisellc.com/5-signs-you-need-erp-software/

 

 

1. ERP implementation is push oriented, as ERP forces organization to accept standard integrated business processes. ERP serves as a bottom-up approach since its implementation starts from elemental business process. Individuals within the organization cannot select their own business processes for use in new system, but are instead required to accept proposed standard business processes from ERP. This push orientation can be expected to generate resistance from members of organization.
2. Basic concept of EAI is mainly in its externality of enterprise integration with lower costs and less programming using existing applications. EAI, is pull-oriented in that existing applications and business processes are used to map and integrate separate functionalities of an enterprise into a form that is more acceptable to members of organization. EAI is designed as top-down, due to its business-mapping procedure.

Both approaches consume huge amount of time to build integrated systems but ERP seems to takes longer to implement. While ERP forces adoption of standard business processes, EAI enables enterprise integration over business object levels. ERP thereby supports centralized business strategy while EAI accommodates decentralized processes.

ERP implementation requires re-engineering of business process prior to adoption of ERP, however, EAI implementation enforces business-mapping processes to EAI architecture.

http://searchsap.techtarget.com/tip/EAI-primer-for-SAP-XI-and-middleware-technologies

MRP is a predominant methodology in organizing inventory, production planning and manufacturing management. It has its own benefits and drawbacks.

Advantages:

• On time availability of right materials required for production.
• Increase in timely delivery of manufactured goods to customers.
• Decrease in capital costs due to decreased inventory levels and optimal use of production resources.
• Utilizing business data for analysis and better planning.
• Optimal use of manufacturing resources.

Considerations to avoid failure:

• MRP give benefits when applied under appropriate circumstances and is mostly suitable for make-to-stock manufacturers. Make-to-order and mixed mode manufacturers also benefit from MRP, but only to extent that their production lots are medium to large and products don’t vary much. In case of project based manufacturer, it may be enough to use the approach of ordering and manufacturing what is needed and MRP gives just a framework of how to not miss important pieces.
• With MRP, we need to keep stock and store production records. For production planning to be correct, it’s important to record finished operations and manufacturing orders as soon as production gets completed.

Alternatives:

• Theory of Constraints
• Lean/Six Sigma.

Both address same problem from different angles and do not change basic requirement of keeping records.

Refrence : http://www.erpnews.com/importance-choosing-erp-wisely/

With E-commerce growing rapidly, it’s important to pay attention to various causes that slow down performance of an e-commerce system while consuming time with processes and integration issues.

Integration Issues

Data is interpreted from different sources to help make decisions that most likely affect BI. Timely access to accurate information and business intelligence  is required, so that it’s easier to understand how e-commerce solutions are supporting profit margins and growth in sales.

Prohibit Growth and Expansion

E-commerce growth means hiring new employees, developing new product lines and expanding into new markets. New employees need access to higher end data systems to run operations such as analyzing web analytics, without having to call technical support for each issue.

Manual Process

Manual processes to complete simple transactions cost time. Integrated system should automate shipping and tracking from the moment customers put in order to the moment the product arrives at their doorsteps. An integrated e-commerce platform should track and synchronize inventory along with orders. It should also track profits and losses with an effective accounting system.

 

If any of these issues persist in businesses they should consider upgrading to a more integrated e-commerce solution that will support them as their business grows.

Reference : http://www.erpnews.com/4-eye-opening-signs-indicate-time-upgrade-integrated-e-commerce-solution/

ERP has always been about transactions and tasks.It has provided businesses with control that they need to manage supply chains and production lines. Business terrain is changing, e.g manufacturing is no longer based on historic patterns and duplicate processes.In 2017 businesses need to respond quicker according to market demand and deliver products faster.However there are few indicators that possess threat to legacy ERP systems.

From adaptive manufacturing to prototyping ,new technologies are changing  ERP industry for good e.g. additive layer manufacturing ,has potential to change how production line works, allows to assemble components and make shapes that cannot be made with traditional methods.

Many enterprises are  planing to adopt IoT technologies.By connecting machines,warehouses and products,it’s possible for them to create smarter production systems that can monitor and control processes throughout  production line requiring minimum manual intervention.

As apps become important to interact with technology ,next generation employees prefer an app like interface over ERP systems.These preferences will penetrate world of software and change how businesses work with ERP software.

Hence above mentioned facts will prompt businesses to address new pressures,set new priorities for growth. ERP software may become obsolete but an intuitive resource planning , will play an important role in 2017.

Since its inception Big data has touched almost every business process , hence even ERP couldn’t escape from its magic.Few ways in which it has impacted ERP :

1) Faster information delivery : Technologies like Hadoop are enabling node level operational transparencies that touch every ERP module in real time.This allows enterprise managers to quickly leverage big data capabilities to enhance the information and expedite decision making.
2)Scheduling improvements : PM module is driven by series of schedule based metrics. All data points are available readily available in real time.This advancement enables efficient ERP scheduling and hence productive PM methodologies.
3)BI:Accurate forecasting: Integration with big data resolves need of “more data” and ultimately leads to overall forecast accuracy.
4)Manufacturing:Increased QA:  Manufacturing is where quality assurance comes into play.Big data allows manufacturers to store and monitor real time data sets of production line, to create better results while work is in progress rather than having to deal with problems after the product hits quality assurance phase.
5) Profiling customers: Big data enables CRM operators to track customer trends in real time and then use data to create further direct sales.

This provides an overview of how Big Data is evolving and altering management thinking in ERP.

 

 

 

Amazon’s “Fulfillment by Amazon” service is one of the most famous fulfillment networks that enables third party sellers to store their products in the fulfillment centers managed by Amazon.

When a customer places an order for items sold by a FBA seller, the order is picked, packed and shipped by Amazon. Customer service for these orders is also managed by Amazon, and Amazon’s shipping rates and policies apply to these orders for shipping within the US.

Process:

Sellers’ Benefits:

• Major benefit for sellers lies in the fact that they are able to scale their businesses and reach out to more customers using Amazon’s facilities.
• Since Amazon handles customer service and returns, there is an inherent trust with in customers and hence sellers don’t have to worry about building customer relationship.
• There is no minimum requirement for the quantity of products that sellers can send, also details of inventory are handled by Amazon, saving seller’s time.
• It’s simple and cost effective. Sellers are charged for the storage space and for the  orders fulfilled by Amazon. Cost of shipping is included in the subscription fee  charged by Amazon.

Amazon’s Benefit:

•  Generates revenue via FBA fee and from the margin of seller’s products.

 

IT procurement revolves around the activities necessary to acquire IT products and services,telecommunications,hardware,software etc.It involves establishing terms and conditions for providing services,price negotiations,performing market research,and communicating with the customers regarding the status of purchases.IT procurement activities majorly fall under the enterprise wide project management process.Some of the documents involved are:
a)Requests for Information(RFI) b) Request for Proposal (RFP) and c) Request for Quotations (RFQ)

IT Vendor Management and IT Procurement usually go hand in hand,however both have some specific areas to focus on.

Vendor Management
a)Vendor management is mostly focused on maintaining the relationships with third parties and mitigating the risks associated in dealing with them.
b)The goal is to ensure that all vendors are functioning as per the agreed contracts and  are adhering to the company’s standards.

Procurement
a)Procurement’s objective is to save company’s money and reduce the risk related to contracts.Contracts that are due for renewal are also reassessed under procurement process.
b) Aim is to reduce costs ,license fee etc.Under procurement process negotiating for the best price is one of the main objectives.
c)The terms and conditions are also reviewed to check if they are in alignment with the contract and are in favor the company’s interests.

 

My first encounter with accounting occurred in my first quarter at Santa Clara University.It was a completely new area for me and my interest in the financial world grew by leaps and bounds with each passing lecture.Recently I had another chance of exploring the link between ERP ,and Financial accounting and it was very staggering to find how the latter supports ERP systems.

SAP ERP’s Finance and Accounting solution smooth-ens the operations related to finance for any organization.It coalesces and automates the important accounting and financial procedures,hence un-complicating the process of managing resources,expenditures and financial reporting documents. ERP binds the processes spread across different functional areas to give a unique version of the financial information to everyone.SAP ERP’s finance solution,also allows anyone to have a real-time understanding of the company’s financial health.It also helps to reduce costs by providing a common platform for customers or suppliers to interact.SAP FICO ( FI denotes Financial Accounting and CO denotes Controlling ) acts as a repository for the data of the financial transactions.

I hope to learn more about the different aspects of SAP FICO modules along with their correlation to other business process.Here is my attempt to represent different SAP FI modules in a diagram.