Question 1
Internal workforce: When Organizations want to adopt new software, they must consider users preparedness in accepting and using the product. As such, the management is required to handle the transition stage in a good manner so that the new software product is acceptable to users and that it accommodates uninterrupted delivery of education and other essential services in the University (Ehie and Madsen, 2005, p.547). Change management, when considering any software deployment process, includes assuring employees that they will not lose their jobs and that change process will minimize initial disruptions caused by new hardware, services, and software. The manager will also need to be concerned about the negative attitudes and incidents that may be caused by the new systems. The management must be capable of assessing the change management process that may lead to failure or rejection of the new software by motivating the concerned students.
Technical Assessment: This is a factor that analyzes the technical reasonableness of the proposed ERP solution. This factor is meant to assess whether the university has resources and infrastructure that will be capable of supporting the ERP application such as the hardware and network capability. This assessment also measures the guarantee of the reliability of the software product to allow future growth (Al-Mashari, 2002, p.166).
The reputation of the vendor: This is a factor that reviews the capability of the vendor to deliver products that satisfy the needs of the organization. As a factor, the university must only consider those vendors with a reputation for delivering high-quality software systems.
Operational/requirement assessment: This is an evaluation that reviews the full extent of changes that are required in the organization so as to accommodate the proposed software. The proposed system must primarily be capable of solving business problems as well as providing the university with better opportunities to grow now and in the future. It must align its capabilities to business processes, educational products, and services being offered and human resource management.
Software ergonomic assessment: This is a factor that determines the ergonomic requirements of the University. It reviews that the working environment of the software is safe and efficient for university employees as well as students by ensuring that human interface components are user-friendly and that users feel more comfortable to work with the software modules and products (O'Leary, 2000, p.45).
Question 2
Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions
In general, there exist six distinct products that are makeup Microsoft Dynamics Family, which are Microsoft Dynamics GP, AX, NAV, and SL. There is also Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which is a customer relationship management product and Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management Systems which are Microsoft’s software offering for retail business software. Microsoft Dynamics NAV, GP, and SL are basically envisioned for small as well as medium firms while Microsoft Dynamics AX is mainly suitable for large enterprises (Microsoft Dynamics, 2016). The Microsoft Dynamics Enterprise resource planning software gives organizations the necessary tools that they need to manage and connect their entire business processes right from financial as well as supply chain management. They give organizational managers the suitable insight that they require to make suitable and smart decisions. Businesses are encouraged to start with system requirements that they require now and keep on adopting more functionalities as they expand either on the cloud or their own servers. Microsoft Dynamics purely goes beyond other traditional ERP systems through bringing applications which run on organizational sales, finances and operations just with familiar Microsoft Office applications that are known to users. That is even made more powerful through the cloud solution where organizations can combine the power of the cloud in their working so that organizational workers can work from anywhere, across their devices and anytime. The Microsoft ERP solutions are also seemingly important in that organizations to get the same experience and enterprise-grade security so as to protect organizations and their customers.
Deploying Microsoft Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics ERP ensures that organizations can reduce infrastructure, IT management costs and hardware, easily scale their IT infrastructure up and down as need arises, refocusing IT from managing infrastructure and into working on strategic goals of the organization, getting up and running business in short periods of time and securing access to data that is stored on the cloud when accessed from anywhere and on any device. Microsoft Dynamic ERP solution also brings data through the connected platform for business applications so as to enhance productivity, collaboration, and communication by going beyond traditional accounting system (Microsoft Dynamics, 2016). It operates on Windows OS and uses SQL-based database systems.
Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions Pros
Microsoft Dynamics allows use of dimensions that essentially allow lighter chart accounts suitable for dynamic data use categorization for budgetary control and reporting.
These products are integrated making inventory easy and straight forward to create. The costing options have also been noted to offer different costings such as FIFO, standard, and LIFO for a variety of inventory and pricing.
Still, bank and cash management for the financial module are now independent thus offering better tools for managing organizational cash flow. This is also true for budgeting functionality that makes the setting, updating and managing budgets easier and this module now works well with Excel.
ERP system and data updates at transactional levels are less complex so as to import and export data via Excel and into AX since system security right to access tables and data in question have been taken care of.
Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions Cons
Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems have MRP that sometimes is slow to adapt actual product changes and supply chain transactions.
Payment processing has also been found to be inappropriate since it’s based on checks, wires, and ACH.
Setting up sequences of numbers may be easier, but number transaction IDs in the ledger are easier to miss especially during the implementation process.
Oracle
Previously Oracle was best known for a relational database and was considered the best choice database for SAP ERP applications until 2004 when Oracle started building its own ERP solutions. Oracle Financials was the first Oracle platform released on the market in 1989. Oracle has a customer base of around 65, 000 customers with ERP solutions for all industries, organizations of different sizes and addresses nearly every business challenge (Oracle.com, 2016). Core applications that it offers include Customer Relationship Management CRM, enterprise resource planning ERP, human capital management, financial management, transport management and supply chain. The major ERP lines in Oracle products include Oracle E-Business Suite, JD Edwards Enterprise One, and PeopleSoft Enterprise.
Oracle ERP systems pros
The organizations can keep up with demand for IT assets that is increasing without adding headcount
Organizations can scale operations efficiently so as to support business growth
Organizational information system users can work virtually anywhere and anytime with their devices that are securely protected
Through these ERP solutions organizations secure and automate organizational processes so as to reduce data risks.
Oracle Cons
Oracle ERP products are expensive and do not offer as specialized support to customers as other ERP systems that are available in the market.
The Oracle products are not integrated with legacy systems in organizations.
Question 3
Implementing ERP solutions in institutions of higher learning is often difficult to implement since they cause considerable work disruption. This therefore calls for a careful selection of closely tailored ERP solutions that cause minimum disruptions so as to ensure that organizations have the greatest chances of success (Becerra-Fernandez, Murphy and Simon, 2000, p. 40). In particular, Higher Education ERP solutions must fulfill the checklists of ensuring that there is fairness of all users of the systems so that no user experiences disadvantage when they are using the system. Users must assess and later approve the system’s acceptability for user-friendliness as well as user functionality. The selected ERP solution must also be reliably driven by the management certification of the accuracy of the solution.
The UoW University needs to check the validity of the ERP solution system so that users can access the modules that they want which must conform to what the system claims to offer. This is primarily done through conducting trials and to determine if the system is capable of meeting the expectation of the university. This can also be done through the use of typical vendor demonstrations that ought to be straightforward and simple so as to determine if the demonstration applies to the specific situation of the situation of the university and not the higher education industry. The selected ERP solution system’s scope suitability involves finding out whether the ERP system has key features that are key for learners and other users in acquiring skills that they need from the system in sufficient depth and their levels. Further, the ERP solution needs to satisfy the management with proper documentation that includes user manuals or online help, generating key records which are easy to put to use, easily accessible and easy to understand. The other factor to consider in settling for a suitable ERP Solution system is the practicability of the solution which primarily determines the extent of training that is required for system users across the university, availability of hardware, time, staff expertise as well as other resources needed for the system to operate well (Shehab, Sharp, Supramaniam, and Spedding, 2004, p.350). This is also known as technical fit tests where the selected ERP system solution must fit within the current technology that the company is using. In the current situation, the university is using the Windows platform and thus chosen ERP solution must also have an accompanying SQL Server for the database so as to simplify manpower issues as well as making the solution easier in management. When the above factors and considered together with the requirements of the University, Microsoft Dynamic ERP systems fit best for this university.
References
Al-Mashari, M., 2002. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: a research agenda. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 102(3), pp.165-170
Becerra-Fernandez, I., Murphy, K.E. and Simon, S.J., 2000. Enterprise resource planning: integrating ERP in the business school curriculum. Communications of the ACM, 43(4), pp.39-41.
Ehie, I.C. and Madsen, M., 2005. Identifying critical issues in enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. Computers in industry, 56(6), pp.545-557.
Microsoft Dynamics. (2016). Grow Beyond Accounting Software. [online] Available at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/erp-small-midsize-business.aspx [Accessed 7 Jul. 2016].
O'Leary, D.E., 2000. Enterprise resource planning systems: systems, life cycle, electronic commerce, and risk. Cambridge university press.
Oracle.com. (2016). ERP Software | Enterprise Resource Planning | Oracle United Kingdom. [online] Available at: https://www.oracle.com/uk/applications/enterprise-resource-planning/index.html [Accessed 7 Jul. 2016].
Shehab, E.M., Sharp, M.W., Supramaniam, L. and Spedding, T.A., 2004. Enterprise resource planning: An integrative review. Business Process Management Journal, 10(4), pp.359-386.
