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Week 5 - Primary Discussion

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As identified in the Kelly's Salon Case Study, there are at least three areas where Kelly's business could use improvement:  Customer and Employee Scheduling, Supply Management, and Customer Information and Marketing.  Over time, each of these will likely have an IT solution.  However, you know that if you could combine these into an enterprise system, you would be able to significantly improve the operations of Kelly's Salon. 

Group A will prerform the analysis and provide the initial response by answering the below questions, Groups B, C, and D will then respond to at least two classmates responses  before 11:59 p.m. on Sunday.Everyone has a responsibility to check back and see if any questions have been posed to them, and to respond as you would in a classroom setting. 

Questions

1. What opportunities are being missed when each little area (scheduling, supply management, marketing, and others) has its own "stove piped" data?  (Provide some examples.)  
2. What benefits will the Kelly's Salon realize if you implement an enterprise-wide system?  Identify how Kelly as the manager will benefit from having additional information available.  
3. What types of decisions that she makes as the manager would be improved if she had all this information in one place? 
4. Would it make the most sense to start with a CRM, an SCM or an ERP system for Kelly's Salon and why.  Keep in mind that additional systems and functionality could come later. 

The Internet is full of war stories that tell the tale of failed ERP projects. According to Panorama’s study as cited by Krigsman (2010), “57% of ERP implementations take longer than expected. This challenge is partly attributed to the fact that many companies … either had unrealistic expectations regarding timeframes and/or did not account for key project activities in their implementation planning processes.”

Replacing multiple legacy applications with a single ERP system is driven by the complexity, risk, and integrated nature of the business processes they automate. These systems touch almost every aspect of a company and the ones that fail are the ones that become urban legends on the Internet.

For this discussion I would like each member of Group A to select a different one of the failures listed in the “Top Six ERP Implementation Failures” and discuss what happen, your initial response should answer the below questions. Groups B, C, and D will then respond to at least two classmates responses before 11:59 p.m. on Sunday. Everyone has a responsibility to check back and see if any questions have been posed to them and to respond as you would in a classroom setting.

Discussion

To respond to this discussion, read the below article from 360 Cloud Solutions and then select one of the companies and research what went wrong with the implementation. To help you determine the problems your selected company encountered, consider this list of 10 reasons for ERP failures:

1. Doing it in the first place.
2. No clear destination.
3. A good plan or just a plan?
4. Part-time project management.
5. Under-estimating resources required.

Over-reliance on the consultants.

1. Customization.
2. On the job training.
3. Insufficient testing.
4. Not enough user training.

The complete article is available at 10 reasons for ERP Implementation failures There are other opinions on why projects fail, and you are welcome to use them. The only requirement for this discussion is that you provide some quantifiable facts about why the company failed and describe what they did after the project failed.

Top Six ERP Implementation Failures

Posted by Melissa Monahan

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations should smoothly integrate both internal and external information management across the organization that implements them, and yet many organizations that utilize ERP end up running into failure. It is believed that as many as 29 percent of all ERP implementations end up failing, and there are some well-known examples in the news that reinforce this belief. Here is a look at some of the top ERP implementation failure incidents that have occurred recently.

• Hershey's Blunder

Perhaps one of the best known ERP implementation failure incidents hitting the news occurred during the Halloween season in 1999. Due to mishap after mishap involving the company's SAP ERP, CRM, and supply chain applications, the company failed to deliver $100 million dollars’ worth of Hershey Kisses during the season, which resulted in a startling 8 percent stock dip.

• Nike's Supply Chain Issues

Back in 2000 and 2001, Nike spent $400 million dollars updating their supply chain system and ERP implementation. They were surprised to find that what it got them was a ghastly 20 percent dip in their stock, $100 million dollars in lost revenues and a myriad of class action lawsuits.  Where did they go wrong? They implemented a new demand-planning software solution without testing it, and everything went awry. Rather than helping Nike match their supply with demand, narrowing their sneaker manufacturing cycle, they ended up ordering low-selling sneakers in place of high demand ones, collapsing the supply chain.

• Hewlett Packard's Disaster

While it is not uncommon for small disasters or issues to occur during the rollout of a new ERP system, total ERP implementation failure can occur when too many of these little issues occur all at once. Moving all of the company's North American divisions into a single centralized ERP system ended up costing the company $160 million dollars in backlogged orders and lost revenues, more than five times what the project was estimated to cost in 2004.

• Waste Management's Trashed System

Waste Management began an 18-month installation process in 2005 that turned into a $100 million dollar legal battle which has been going on since 2008. Waste Management filed suit against SAP executives who apparently participated in fraud leading to a massive ERP implementation failure.

• FoxMeyer Drugs' Bankruptcy

FoxMeyer Drugs, a $5 billion dollar company implemented a $100 million dollar ERP system and went completely bankrupt not long after. Did the two have a correlation? They launched the Delta III project in 1993, and implementation began between 1994 and 1995. By 1996, FoxMeyer had been driven into bankruptcy, and by 1997 the pharmaceuticals company was suing SAP, the ERP project vendor as well as Andersen Consulting, responsible for integrating the system for $500 million dollars apiece.

• The Navy's $1 Billion Dollar Blunder

Perhaps most startling, the United States Navy has sunk $1 billion dollars into four different ERP pilot projects since 1998, and all four have failed. These projects were based on SAP AG software. All four installations turned out to be incompatible and redundant, ultimately failing to meet the requirements of the Navy. While in this case, the only cost was the money spent on purchasing the programs, this is an ERP implementation failure of epic proportions.

Learn From the Past Mistakes of Others

These are just a few of the serious ERP implementation failure occurrences that have happened over the past few decades. Businesses and organizations must look upon these examples, and use everything these companies and organizations learned through experimentation and failure to rise above and find greater success with an ERP implementation. ERP implementations can be successful without failure, but only when the right system is implemented by the right people to do the job.

References

Krigsman, M. (2010, February 3). ERP failure: New research and statistics. ZDNet. Retrieved April 15, 2014, fromhttp://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/erp-failure-new-research-and-statistics/8253

Discussion topic 2 Human Resources

please use this resource to answer questions: 

Abreu (2014) The Myriad Benefits of Diversity in the Workplacehttp://www.entrepreneur.com/article/2405502

Question 1: Everyone responds to question 1

The Abreu article you were asked to read this week presents a list of benefits for an organization in developing a culturally diverse workforce. Select one of the benefits Ms. Abreu identified and summarize your understanding of the benefit and why you believe this benefit is import. Use the recommended articles to support your arguments and views. Be sure to explain your ideas and support your arguments fully. And last, what does do these benefits mean to you as an HRM? What policies might you develop and implement as HRM to ensure your company achieves these benefits?

Question 2: Web search please!

Visit the website http://www.diversityinc.com and find their latest “top 50 list.” What criteria are used to evaluate companies that appear on this list? What are the top five companies for the current year? Develop a brief commentary about the site. What do you think about the articles available here?

Discussion Topic 3: Business Management

Learning Activity # 1

Who uses accounting information? What do they use it for, and

why do they find it helpful? What problems would arise if they were not provided with accounting information?

Learning Activity # 2  

What does the Federal Reserve do? What is the difference between the economic stability and the financial stability parts of the mission of the Federal Reserve? What will happen if the Federal Reserve increases or decreases interest rates?

Use the text and this information: https://www.federalreserve.gov/