Integrated Business Challenge: Proposal for SAP Implementation

Running Head: INTEGRATED BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Integrated Business Challenge
Name of the Student
Name of the University

1INTEGRATED BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Business Cover Letter
To
Mr. A
Head of Operations,
Colgate Palmolive India
Dated:
Subject: Regarding business case for proposed project
Respected Sir,
This letter is to inform you that as per the desired changes you requested in our last meeting and
proposed new project, we have created this business case that is used to discuss how the changes you
suggested and modifications can be implemented in a suitable manner and within the budget that you also
mentioned to be available. Hence, you are requested to go through this business case and provide your
feedback regarding the same.
Thanking You.
Yours Faithfully,
<INSERT NAME>

2INTEGRATED BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Executive Summary
This business case is prepared based on a proposed project plan for Colgate-Palmolive Limited. As per
their requirement, they want to develop their CSR activities in addition to technical upgrades to increase
market in Asian countries, especially India. For fulfilling their purpose, development of SAP system has
been suggested that will help them in significant technical upgrade as well as prepare a better and efficient
management system for the CSR projects and campaigns that they plan to conduct in India in the near
future. In other words, the implementation of the SAP system and integrate it with the existing system in the
company would be very beneficial for the company. The main aim is to increase the efficiency for the
company and reduce the complexities that are faced by the staffs within the company. In this business
case, the details of project as well as estimated time and budget have been provided.

3INTEGRATED BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction and Background to Business Case.......................................................................................4
1.1 Overview of Business Case................................................................................................................. 4
1.2 Overview of Business and CSR Activities............................................................................................4
1.3 Opportunity of Business Venture..........................................................................................................4
2.0 Business Case Definition..........................................................................................................................5
2.1 Nature of the Business Venture........................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Business Case Aim.............................................................................................................................. 6
2.3 Business Case Scope.......................................................................................................................... 6
3.0 Business Case Stakeholders and Stakeholders Analysis.........................................................................6
4.0 Program Logic Model................................................................................................................................7
4.1 Project Scope....................................................................................................................................... 8
4.2 Key Objectives..................................................................................................................................... 8
4.3 Operational Objectives......................................................................................................................... 8
4.5 Marketing Objective..............................................................................................................................9
4.6 CSR Objectives.................................................................................................................................. 10
5.0 Feasibility Analysis................................................................................................................................. 10
6.0 Gantt Chart............................................................................................................................................. 13
7.0 Resources.............................................................................................................................................. 18
8.0 Budget.................................................................................................................................................... 19
Bibliography.................................................................................................................................................. 20
Appendices................................................................................................................................................... 23
Appendix 1............................................................................................................................................... 23
Appendix 2............................................................................................................................................... 23

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1.0 Introduction and Background to Business Case
1.1 Overview of Business Case
Colgate-Palmolive is a company that is constantly growing in spite of already having hold over a
large portion of the international market. However, with the growing technological demands for maintaining
viability in the market, the company has proposed a new project for the implementation of SAP in their
current business system. The main objective behind this project is to establish a “digital core” i.e. in single
global platform on which, the entire business system of the company will be integrated. Currently, Colgate-
Palmolive has reaches over 220 countries in the world and hence, it has separate management systems for
different regions and countries (Möller and Parvinen 2015). With the new SAP ERP system, the entire
business process will be simplified and integrated into one common system. It will also benefit the CSR
profile of the company as the business will be more customer-oriented and all the different branches will be
run using the same CSR policies.
1.2 Overview of Business and CSR Activities
Currently, Colgate-Palmolive deals with the manufacture and sale of various domestic care
products like toothbrush, toothpaste, soaps and shampoos as well as pet nutrition products. With the global
presence of the company, the annual revenue for the company is around $20 billion and it operates its
sales business over 220+ countries through various supply chains. However, due to massive international
reach of the company, the business areas have been divided into several regions that have separate
management systems and operations policies. The company also has some detailed CSR policies that
must be followed by all regional branches. For the CSR purposes, the company often implements some
short term projects that are aimed to benefit society, especially those with limited resources. Some of the
recent and large scale CSR projects undertaken by the company include Oral Health Month, Palmolive
Clean Hands Good Health, Protex Hand Washing Day and others (Pinto 2015). While some of these
projects are global in nature, some others are region specific that are also managed independently by the
regional branches of the company. However, the investments for these projects come from the central
branch in USA but they cannot keep sufficient track on the expenses especially in the remote regional
branches. With the new proposed SAP ERP system, the entire business system will be centralized on a
common digital platform. In this system, the central headquarter will be able to control all the CSR projects
and expenses with efficient monitoring and updating the same on their business portal so that the
customers are able to view the same.
1.3 Opportunity of Business Venture
The new SAP ERP system will open a large number of windows of opportunity for the company in
terms of business as well as corporate social responsibility. The company already has access to

5INTEGRATED BUSINESS CHALLENGE
international markets over 220+ countries and hence, there is no very much space for expansion of
services. However, there is opportunity for organization to enhance the existing services along with the
upgradation of the existing technologies to have more efficient operations as well as centralized control
over the entire business function around the world (Sekaran and Bougie 2016). Furthermore, SAP ERP will
also enable the company to invest more in the CSR projects as they will have better monitoring and
controlling options over expenses and profit analyses. The centralized business platform will also reduce
unnecessary expenses in the regional branches and increase the overall profitability of the regional
branches.
2.0 Business Case Definition
2.1 Nature of the Business Venture
The nature of this particular business venture is to implement SAP ERP system in the current
business system of Colgate-Palmolive in order to develop a common and central platform for the business
operations. Currently, the company operates through regional supply chains and hence, each regional unit
operates independently following the basic business policies of the organization. However, in this system,
the monitoring and control from the central headquarters is not sufficient and hence, there is no proper
track of business expenses and profits from various regional units. In order to develop a suitable business
intelligence that will integrate the entire system, SAP ERP is the most viable choice. In addition to the
integration of the business, the company can now operate as one global unit instead of separate regional
units. As per the new system, the possible benefits will be as follows.
Centralized Control – In the issue with the separate control for regional units, each unit operates
independently and submits the annual revenue to the headquarters at the end of the year. However, in this
type of system, it is impossible for the central headquarter to monitor the business of all the units including
daily / monthly expenses, business transactions, profit margin and others (Wilson 2014). Hence, a common
platform with centralized control is required where all the business activities will be logged in the central
server and hence, monitoring of business will be possible. SAP ERP will provide this benefit and hence, will
be very much suitable for Colgate-Palmolive.
Business Intelligence – In addition to the centralized control benefit, the SAP ERP will also
provide business intelligence to the entire business process of the company. In other words, most of the
business operations will be computerized and automated that will increase the processing efficiency and
decrease processing time significantly. Moreover, this will also reduce the need for manual processing and
hence, will remove all the errors caused by the manually processed system (Nicholas and Steyn 2017).
This will benefit Colgate-Palmolive significantly as the operational costs will be reduced by a large margin
letting the company to invest more in CSR projects.