Self-Service Implementation With Microsoft Dynamics NAV As An ERP Essay.

1. recognise and explain the core concepts of enterprise systems and its architecture

2. critically analyse the role of enterprise systems in the business process management domain

3. apply process management skills and enterprise systems tools to develop practical solutions that support business operations and decision-making

4. communicate enterprise systems and their strategic implications to both technical and non-technical audiences within a business context.

• Write with respectful and professional language. No slangs please.

• Ensure your writing is motivational and supportive.

• Focus on description rather than judgement.

• Provide a balance of positive and negative feedback.

• Aim to refer to relevant literature to support your response.

Better Collaboration between IT and HR at Wipro

• its challenges. The team that focused on culture was to ensure that the new system was accepted and that it would function the same way as the existing system. The business team was to ensure that there would be a change in the working practises as the functionality demand of the software changed. The final team was to ensure that data was not lost during migration into the new system. Here, data was stored after screening to avoid duplication. This was a right strategy to implement the ERP.
• Critical success factors and role of SME’s – Business, technical and cultural factors were the three critical factors of success in Rolls Royce’s ERP implementation strategies. By focusing on the cultural factor, they made sure that everyone was content with the new system, assuring them that the working would be the same as the old one. The team offered training to employees. The business team used current process mapping procedures, remapping them to show the employees what needed to change in the organization to meet the new demands. The technical team validated the data before storing the data in a data warehouse. SMEs’ use in the project was to facilitate changes in working and training, since they had an experience with the older systems.
• Advice to Rolls Royce Technical team- The technical team had a duplicate data problem while migrating the data from the older system. The best way to solve this problem is to clear the data completely from the source, when transfer from the older system is complete.

1. Challenges faced by UPS - The main challenge that UPS Corp faced was lack of new technology. The case study presents them performing data entry by hand, and that means wrong input of data or errors in shipping, delivery packages put on the wrong delivery trucks. Since they have big data, UPS makes sure that all data handling is right as well as train the workers to use the new data management system. This is costly for the organization monetary basis, time and resources.
2. Integration solutions at UPS – In addition to centralizing data in one of their two big data centers, they added better services like online tracking of packages. This resulted in the company acquiring me than thirty other companies that having than three thousand employees on the data centers. The organization embraced new technology like ERP modules from Oracle that were to assist Human resource and financial departments to communicate effectively.
3. Integrations advantages to customers – The online tracking of packages was a great advantage. Before the technology, users would use mobile phones to call the organization whenever they needed to know the delivery progress of their package. With online platform, customers now track their own packages easily, reducing UPS the burden to do so and that means more customer satisfaction

Self-service implementation between Wipro and MBH – at Wipro, there was a good collaboration between Information Technology and human resource while the collaboration at MBH wasn’t that good.

The amount of work determined the budget allocation at Wipro which was not the case with MBH.

Wipro was more concerned with proper communication channel for employees while MBH focused on their internal integration, without considering the system’s users.

 Generally, Wipro had better implementation of services that MBH which faced challenges like user dissatisfaction because of different user interfaces and data modification being costly. Hence Wipro did a better job.

• Measures used by Wipro for evaluating their self-service implementation- By evaluation of quantitative business side. They achieved this by understanding the project’s value, after measuring cycle time, return and cost. Self-service implementation at Wipro may seem thorough but when actual software is used to measure progress, the self-service accuracy is low. Therefore it is not a good measure for evaluation.
• Adapting SOA model at MBH – SOA stands for Service Oriented Architecture. Its implementation is on the web and it represents the Object Oriented architecture. SOA reduces the service into small units of service which should comply with the set standards. The model is costly and sophisticated, and that is why implementation of self service will make it hard to implement the SOA model.

1. How BPM changes IT investments – Since businesses’ goals are always changing, BPM should be a continuous practice, not a one-time thing. IT departments play an important role in business and hence in process management. BPM software enables smooth integration of IT operations in an organization. This happens when IT technicians use time efficiently in solving complex tasks like monitoring and maintaining computer software and managing databases (Brocke & Schmiedel, 2015). Online versions of the software enable real time covering and reporting of processes, helping managers to make fast decisions easily.
2. Key principles that the process-oriented organizations must follow to effectively implement BPM:

• Establishing a steering group – An organization’s BPM project must have a good foundation in order for it to be a success. The steering group is a foundation that helps set a knowledge repository for future BPMs. A group of IT personnel, business managers and high level executives usually forms the steering group. The executive staff sponsors the initial project, and push through all the organizational changes. The IT executive represents the technology interests of the organization (Brocke & Schmiedel, 2015). The steering group’s main agenda is to propel the organization towards a specific purpose.
• Identifying a suitable target – Choosing a good and achievable project is another key principle. It determines the level of success of the project. The team should look for projects that are not yet mature, or poorly understood. This is because they are easier to improve that carefully managed ones. Choosing high impact projects is essential. These are those projects that produce a high return. The projects should not be complex. They should be easily manageable.
• Sponsorship – Getting the executives to embrace the project is an important task. Given that projects can come from any individual in an organization, identifying a sponsor is essential. Without a sponsor, problems may arise and project risk increased. The organization may lose interest in the project and divert resources into other channels.
• Forming the BPM team – the BPM team should be goal- oriented and effective. A single short-term team, when developed, initiates the pilot project. The team coordinates the work and organizes all the functions of the project (Renders, S. 2015). They are responsible for the completion and delivery of the pilot project.
• Understanding the process – Fully understanding a process is important for the success of the project. One problem avoided is propelling a bad process, which accelerates the problems. Reviewing all the assumptions made about the business needs improves a business process. The aim of this step is modelling a high detailed process.
• Development and prototype of the BPM –Done after the team has understood the process. The prototypes should follow each other as a series (Bradford, M. 2015). The team demonstrates the prototypes to managers and the affected parties to get their feedback. The next prototype incorporates the suggestions made.

1. Strategic alignment- A BPM should be in line with an organization’s strategy. This means that the processes in an organization are and measured bearing in mind the strategic priorities.
2. Governance – The governance of BPM accounts for accountability and transparency of roles of different people involved in the organization.
3. Methods – there are the tools that support the BPM’s activities within BPM enables organizations, for example those methods that aid in process modelling
4. Information Technology – IT solutions are significant in BPMs. An implementation example is in process awareness. This means that the software understands the process that needs to follow.
5. People – This is a core element in BPM. They are the individuals or a group of individuals who dedicate their skills to the BPM to improve performance.
6. Culture – culture of an organization influences BPM. Culture is a collection of beliefs and values. Culture creates an environment that makes various BPM initiatives run properly in an organization.

Microsoft dynamic Nav as an ERP tool provides the above functionalities. For example, the software reduces manual entry of data, which reduces errors. This in turn increases employee satisfaction and they will quickly perform business activities efficiently. This will promote the culture of the business. The ERP helps grow the business strategic plans. The software incorporates people who are skilled to query using C/AL language (Raul, R. 2013).

Putting in place certain strategies made possible to implement the ERP at the institute. They include:

1. Support from management – The management at the institute provided enough resources and motivation to work on the HRMS ERP.
2. Communication – The management communicated to the team members effectively. Whenever the management made changes to the project, they communicated to the members.
3. The IT department made the strategic plan. To fully enhance it, they made the overall vision a part of the project
4. The managers developed measurable goals. The team recorded each result. This made it easy for future reference.

Standardizing software, the hardware and the data in an organization makes the organization consistent. Governance addresses modernization and that’s why it is important.

• The CIO establishes and implements the management policies of information technology department. The Technology Advisory Committee assists the CIO in implementing the policies and procedures.
• Included still, is the Change Control Board for software and hardware changes. Its main aim is minimizing disruptions in operations and their services.
• The IT management Review Board reviews success of the project and enhance management of risks.

In setting up goals for each system components, what did the institute do that many business or institutions do not with an ERP implementation?

The institute made a document that showed the goals and steps taken to implement the idea. The document was important as it showed in detail the progress measuring ways. It also showed the goals for each particular component in the implementation. It showed the process that is currently underway, ways to improve the current project and each result obtained.

References

Bradford, M. (2015). Modern ERP : select, implement & use today's advanced business systems. Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina State University, College of Management.

Brocke, J. & Schmiedel, T. (2015). BPM : driving innovation in a digital world. Cham: Springer.

Brummel, M., Studebaker, D. & Studebaker, C. (2017). Programming Microsoft Dynamics NAV : hone your skills and increase your productivity when programming in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2017. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing.

Carmona, J., Engels, G. & Kumar, A. (2017). Business Process Management Forum : BPM Forum 2017, Barcelona, Spain, September 10-15, 2017, Proceedings. Cham: Springer.

Chow, A. (2016). Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV : explore the capabilities of Dynamics NAV 2016 and discover all you need to implement it. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing.

Chow, A. (2017). Microsoft Dynamics NAV : implementing ERP systems : a course in three modules. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing.

Demiliani, S. (2017). Building ERP solutions with Microsoft Dynamics NAV : create real-world enterprise solutions with NAV, Cloud and the Microsoft stack. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing.

Drogin, A. (2017). Extending Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2016 cookbook : make the most of your NAV deployment by extending and customizing it with a variety of expert tools. Birmingham, UK: Packt Pub.

Lorente, L. (2013). Implementing Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013. Birmingham: Packt Pub.

Raul, R. (2013). Microsoft Dynamics NAV 7 Programming Cookbook. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing.

Renders, S. (2015). Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 professional reporting : discover tips and tricks for Dynamics NAV report building. Birmingham, UK: Packt Publishing.

Sullivan, J., Sullivan, J., Rico, J. & Goldensohn, D. (2014). How-to consider, select & implement an ERP system : Guide one. Central Islip, New York: IMAE Publications.