1. Introduction
Based on the case study on Hemingway College, Catherine Barkley, the manager of purchasing and accounts, are to provide recommendations to the Vice President of finance regarding the final stage of implementation of the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in the college. For implementing the ERP systems in time, Catherine is left with two options, first one is to use the existing staff in addition to a few temporary employees for completing the work. Second option before her is far more expensive and it is to hire consultants from the company that provides ERP systems for implementing it.
2. Recommendations
The following are the recommendations for successfully completing the implementation of the new ERP processes at Hemingway College,
- It is better to go ahead with the second option even though it appears to be about two times more expensive than the first option.
- If using the first option, the existing staff would be exhausted, which would make it difficult for the existing employees to complete even their present routine tasks.
- When using the second option, the institution would get the services of the experts in the field. So the implementation process would go on smoothly and could be completed on time.
- The regular employees could take turns to assist the consultants in the implementation process, which can be considered as an opportunity for the regular employees to familiarize with the new system and its functioning.
- Such exposure for the existing employees to familiarize with the new system would be of much help to them when performing their daily activities using this system.
- If the benefits of the second option is considered in relation to the additional money that need to be spent for the purpose, then the benefits seems to far outweigh the additional costs, from a long term perspective. So it would be better to consider the second option.
