The purpose of this Project Management Plan (PMP) is to define the approach to be taken by the AMP Canada case study implementing SAP in 1 year time with the vendor – SAP business partner. The issues identified were: - The team implementing the new system were required to do both functional and systematic requirements thus affecting the implementation of the new system - The staff were not well trained in the new system - The user requirements were not taken into consideration thus affecting the purchasing orders, poor management of inventory, the manufacturing and finance department were not integrated. This also required a lot of recoding thus costing AMP Canada further investment - The database was not central whether it was customer orders The AMP Canada procurement plan objectives for this project for implementing SAP are to: • Select a vendor to migrate the current JBA system to SAP with the existing business processes. • Determine how to proceed with based on the vendors deadline and costs. • Establish a formal agreement that provides AMP Canada with certainty regarding service level agreements and fixed prices for the chosen implementation. • Establish a relationship with the vendor who is committed to providing the service. Maher (1999) states that the different packages on the market have different strengths in different areas, it is important for the customer to recognise this and select the package with the strengths that are appropriate. Only when top management have reached consensus on what the business requires, should package vetting and selection begin. For this project, a Request for Proposal (RFP) will be issued in order to solicit proposals from various SAP business partners’ vendors which describe how they will meet the requirements, deadline and the cost of implementing the finance To break down the issues with the global component on this project lets discuss the following. The global factors lead too many issues faced when designing the above plans. Communication and Staffing are the main problem areas due to cultural differences in each region as well as time zones when arranging meetings. Staffing issues are around the fact that during this project is important to keep all the staff as SAP is such a hot market staff can move quickly. In terms of the whole project the main issues faced were around no changes to project schedule as it is not flexible and project must be completed within 1 year and the scope must be supported and not changed, and it was challenging to find a vendor who could meet these criteria. As discussed, this project and its requirements highlight areas where future work/improvements can be made to increase the project and the outcome. The timeframe put on this project is something which can be changed to deliver a full implementation rather than “vanilla functionality” which would later need to be modified. Another factor to consider delivering a full implementation would be the capital investment which is used for this project as this needs to be topped
Sapient's strategy to succeed is to do whatever it takes to deliver the right business results for its clients, on time and on budget using its unique QUADD (Quality, Design, Delivery) engagement approach. Its "strategic context" that is its purpose, core values, vision, goals and client value proposition are the means to achieve. Sapient's purpose and core values (client-focused delivery, leadership, relationships, creativity, openness and people growth) focused on client's success. In order to achieve higher growth rates than the industry average it raised the bar in terms of being client-focused. Sapient devises business and IT strategies that improve its clients' competitive position and performance, as well as the value they realize from their IT portfolio. Sapient has a relatively sophisticated business model is as it has multi-geography, multi-currency operation spread across the North America, Europe and India which represent 50% of its total employees for off-shore activities but the company's success relies on focusing to develop new ways to create value for clients by significantly changing, or replacing, business processes, operations, capabilities and business models.
There were three main factors used for choosing this project. First, its low initial investment that makes
Milestones are also identified to estimate the time necessary for major parts of the project to be completed. The entire project was forecasted to cost $6billion, and have its duration shortened to four years owing to the radical outsourcing model adopted(Tang and Zimmerman, 2009).
Business requirements are gathered in this stage. This stage is the main focus of the project managers and stake holders. It is performed by the senior members of the team with inputs from the customer, the sales department, market surveys and domain experts in the industry. This information is then used to plan the main project approach and to conduct product feasibility study in the economical, operational and technical areas. You identify needs of the software. This is the vital stage, because bad investigation may lead to the project
The factors listed though impressive and quite thorough, lacks in three crucial factors we believe would make a deep influence in choosing a provider. They are future scalability and expandability, flexibility to adapt to probable changes during development and maturity of technology being used. Elaborating on why the above stated factors are important to be considered during the selection process, we believe that sufficient forethought and foresight needs to be put on to predict future demand and load on the software and evaluate if the provider can handle these predicted future requirements by upgrading and scaling their system. With a focus on agility, the SiL’K team needs to ensure if the providers are flexible enough to accommodate a change if one arises outside the scope of the initial requirement specification. This is more of a qualitative assessment. Lastly, the third factor stresses on evaluating the technology used in the provider’s implementation. Care must be taken to ensure though the technology can meet the current needs, it is of the modern age and has sufficient maturity to evolve over a period of time to enjoy advantages of new, upcoming enhancements.
In order to increase the sale and number of customer to the company, SAP America established autonomous regional Profit & Loss (P&L) center with their respective sales, consulting and training teams. This resulted in every regional office to work on their own sales and marketing strategy to improving the sales. In order to penetrate the market and build a base, they created an industry strategy called ICOE’s, who act as bridge between the customer and product development organizations.
SAP is one of the largest software companies in the world. SAP Enterprise Resource Planning is the world's largest, and powerful, software product which enables businesses of all sizes to control all aspects of their operations. It is a software package that centralizes the management of all resources states answer.ask.com. It handles everything from material-oriented tasks like management of warehouses, supply chains, and product life cycles to people-oriented tasks such as ...
... need for this one human interaction with the system is what makes it vulnerable to errors and redundancy and the need to get it right is paramount. So the production plan is created bases on the sales order and this is shared with purchasing so that any unavailable material can be ordered. This shows how the MRP links the production with purchasing as well as accounting. Using this information links and sharing properly in the ERP can result in significant cost savings because companies are beginning to see its SCM as part of a larger process than just customers and suppliers.
SAP implementation is a huge undertaking for any company, big or small. The one thing that every company wants to see during and after this implementation is benefits to their business. The biggest result they are looking for is a tangible or measurable benefit as these are easily identifiable and make the task of proving the reason for the hefty investment in SAP much easier. The question becomes how does a company go about seizing the benefits of SAP? There are several keys to seizing this benefit and those include discovering the hard dollar benefits, avoiding common pitfalls in a SAP implantation, and finding the intangible benefits.
In this stage the current system is analysed to determine the functions it performs and those that it is unable to perform. Direct and indirect users of the new system are interviewed to determine what they require from the new system. The inputs to the new system, the processes it is to perform and the outputs from the system are clearly defined. A recommendation is made about the type of new system that will be required to meet the identified needs.
SAP Business One software provides all tools needed for sales, financial management, banking, purchasing, manufacturing, inventory management and customer relationship management. Purchase lines for multi-line phone service with automated capabilities for easy ordering via phone.
...who will use the system to be involved in its development, along with the ongoing installation and training for this system. In a project for a world-wide information system, it is best for the company to only use a limited number of organizations when it comes to design. It is also important to stay a track with what needs to be done and to not let concerns get in the way.
In the following section, an overview of the processes is given. Therefore each of the project management knowledge areas is explained with tools and techniques.
Time, cost and quality constraints relating to project management are interdependable and mutually exclusive. Hence a company should have a well-planned project scheduling to enjoy the fruits of time and cost related benefits. Scheduling hones the productivity and performance of an organization through customized management [2].
AtekPC had developed a vast array of IT applications primarily focused on for the use of business functions like accounting, manufacturing, sales and distribution. There was very little integration between these systems. Most projects were medium sized and were managed informally by the development team (Lead Analysts). Any new development or maintenance projects were undertaken using an informal approach and this led to quick response time and also fewer conflicts. Also the Lead Analysts had long tenures and developed a deep understanding of the business requirements. Changing business needs required complex projects that involved multiple functional and technological areas. The demands of t...