What Is ERP Implementation

ERP System Analysis： Colgate ERP Implementation

MBA517 Information system management

Midterm paper

DI BAI 108726305

Introduction

With development of the information system management, ERP system has been familiar with more and more people. What is the ERP? ERP is short for Enterprise resource planning; generally speaking, it is an Integrated Information System. From the definition of Wikipedia, ERP is business management software—usually a suite of integrated applications, that a company can use to store and manage data from every stage of business, usually it includes several components, such as forecast and planning, manufacturing, marketing and sales, inventory management, etc. This paper gives you a whole idea of what ERP system is, with states its benefits and importance, and also, using Colgate as an example, to analyst its SAP system.

Importance analysis

In 1990, basing on the rapid development of information technology and supply chain management, Gartner Group firstly announced the concept of ERP. It is not a brand new concept actually, it is an extension of MRP (Material requirement planning) and MRP|| (Manufacturing resource planning), but it is different from traditional system because ERP systems run on a variety of computer hardware and network configurations, typically using a database as an information repository, provide an integrated real-time view of core business processes, using common databases maintained by a database management system.

ERP systems are designed to enhance organization’s competitiveness by upgrading an organization’s ability to generate timely and accurate information throughout the enterprise and its supply chain. A successful ERP system implementation can shorten production cycles，increa...

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...e are still some disadvantages we have to concern:

A major disadvantage of ERP is its overall startup cost, which is usually cost from $15,000 for small size company, and up to billion dollars for globe group. Further more, it is hard to customize. Because it will need huge support from database, and every organization has different situation and different rules, it will need huge technical support.

At last, it has weakness to external security threats. Due to the network safety issue, it will need a strong shield to protect confidential data and information, if not well protected, hacker may attack the system, which will be a disaster to the organization.

With technology develops, I believe more and more weakness will be reduced. Being able to weigh both advantages and disadvantages will allow a company to decide if this solution will properly meet their needs.