Re: strategic alignment and ERP

[William Toh]

Your framework is good.  I'm not sure why you say you are unsure.

I have an answer guide for this question.  Please look it up.

On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 11:53 PM, KEK FONG YEE (GUO FANGYU) <fygfk...@mymail.sim.edu.sg> wrote:

hi sir

for the following isorg question is my framework valid? i am not very sure on how to answer this question

"empirical research shoes that it is still very difficult for companies to achieve the strategic alignment of IS and organizational objectives. Discuss this problem where implementation of ERPs." ERP chapt

 

1.What is strategic Alignment

• ISS refers to org's plan to use info and ICT in its business.
• For ICT to generate ROI, new IS need to be strategically aligned with the organisation's objectives so can org's goals can be achieved in quickest and efficient manner
• Difficult to have SA cos gulf btw people who uds tech and people who uds the biz. Technology person may not know biz enough to design suitable sysem while biz expert may not know tech enough to use it for biz.
• So need to collaborate closely to execute effective ISS.

 

2.Why difficult to achieve SA?

• Tech must not only be inexpensive,widely available, people using it must  have right competencies and attitudes  to use it effectively
• ICT have great potential to change way biz do things cos of malone effect but to be able to enjoy the benefits, need to radically change way organisation do things.
• Without BPR, technology is meaningless.

 

3.Challenges to SA of different biz units and ERP

• BPR not a problem for firm level ISS as its mandatory for mgmt to force everyone under its control to change and adopt new system. Goal is to set up enterprise wide ebiz platform to better coordinate activities within firm. Top down technical approach can be used to quickly design an efficient IS that allows all Bus to work together to meet customer's needs. Reengineering eliminates paper trail and inefficient manpower. Firms also benefit from synergies generated by enterprise wide info sharing.
• ERP is example of such an IS. It offers centralised control and coordination of all activities, integrates biz processes into seamless workflow, provides real time enterprise wide info, plan and analyses with accurate historical data, and provides automation to reduce inefficient and error prone manual paper work.
• Eg ERP system used by banks
• But technical approach don’t emphasis on social cultural needs of individual members of the firm. Achieving biz goals supersedes  everything else. System requirement are derived by studying data generated by people who are reduced to processes and replaced with automated processes which are more efficient. Successful if can save a lot. For example, ford motors reduce manpower by 75% by getting procurement,AP/AR dept to work together and use invoiceless AP system for its procurement needs. Although successful, we don’t know what happen to the people who are replaced
• So employees will fear BPR as it comes with restructuring of the job,removal  or reductions of redundant dept and formation of new dept. job scopes may be changed. Managers will not accept and protest if it affect them. For example, physical store manager may not support e-commerce efforts as it will affect physical store sales and affect its sales perf.
• Also need training, redeployment or even retrenched. Likely to resist or sabotage the implementation of ERP.

 

4.Other Implementation challenges of ERP

• Need Data migration-risk of data missed out, cause the system to be ineffective

Thank you for your time

cheers