Strategic Information System for Gracious Industries

This report discusses the key business processes, control risks, and ERP features and functionality used by Gracious Industries for the development of their business. It also compares different ERP vendors and software packages to find the best suitable vendor and ERP software package for the company.

Running head - STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Strategic Information System
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Executive Summary
The case study presented in the assignment specification provides information about
Gracious Industries. The organization have been a prominent distributor of electronic parts
and equipment to various supermarkets, hardware stores and various other number of
businesses. The organization have been operational for over 40 years and have a sales
revenue of over $10.5 million in the past few years. Therefore, due to loss of many data, the
organization have been thinking of expanding their approaches for accepting new accounting
software to the business to the new level. In order to achieve that, the organization have
decided for using Enterprise Resource Planning (EPR) software. The following assignment
would be discussing about the key business processes that are adopted and used by Gracious
Industries for the development of their business, the control risks that are to be faced by the
organization while assessing their business processes, the different kind of features and
functionality of ERP. Therefore, the report could be concluded by providing a brief overview
of the Gracious Industries along with their issues. The report have provided a brief
description of the business processes of the organization. The business processes have
elaborately described all the steps of the business of Gracious Industries taken for operating
the business.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Business Processes of Gracious Industries............................................................................4
Major Control Risk for Gracious Industries...........................................................................8
ERP Features and Function used for control risk and achieving business objectives.........11
ERP Vendors........................................................................................................................12
Comparing the features and functionalities of two ERP software package.........................13
The ideal vendor and ERP Software for Gracious Industries..............................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
The case study presented in the assignment specification provides information about
Gracious Industries. The organization have been a prominent distributor of electronic parts
and equipment to various supermarkets, hardware stores and various other number of
businesses. The organization have been operational for over 40 years and have a sales
revenue of over $10.5 million in the past few years. Hence the organization have been
flourished and build a high grounds of profit margin in the competitive market. It have
experienced exponential growth rate of in their supply orders in the past few years and also
developed their green ranges of product for the development. Although, the organization have
suffered a loss of key accounts due to the not being able to produce some of the products that
are at a competitive price. For solving the issue, the company have hired an accountant for
keeping logs of the books that would be helpful for them for maintaining the information of
the financial statement. Therefore, due to loss of many data, the organization have been
thinking of expanding their approaches for accepting new accounting software to the business
to the new level. In order to achieve that, the organization have decided for using Enterprise
Resource Planning (EPR) software.
The following assignment would be discussing about the key business processes that
are adopted and used by Gracious Industries for the development of their business, the
control risks that are to be faced by the organization while assessing their business processes,
the different kind of features and functionality of ERP which would be ideal for the company
for achieving business objectives, the different vendors that could provide the software to the
organization, comparing two software provided by vendors’ regarding the features and
functionality provided by them, and lastly, the best suitable vendor and EPR software
package for the company.

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Discussion
Business Processes of Gracious Industries
Gracious Industries have been an ideal and prominent organization that have been
supplying electronic parts to various places including hardware stores, supermarkets and
other businesses. The organization is a major supply chain managing organization, therefore,
there are various business processes that are to be considered by the organization for
maintaining the operations of the businesses (Christopher 2016). The management of supply
chain emphasizes many cognitive steps which includes many activities and material flow.
Gracious Industries have been using many integrated departments that are responsible for the
different sets of work. Departments like purchasing, marketing, communication and logistic
and supply are the various departments which are integrated in the company for managing the
whole business of Gracious Industries. With the help of the integration process, information
were shared between the partners of the supply chain management which were leveraged
through above mentioned process only. The business process of supply chain would be
involving collaborative work between the buyers and the suppliers, joint product developer,
the common systems and the information being shared. The supply chain business process
requires a continuous flow of information, which initially would be helping in the operations
of the business (Hugos 2018).
The business process of Gracious Industries could be defined as the process of
progressive designing, planning, execution, control and monitoring of the activities involving
the supply chain management. The objective of the process is to create a proper net value
which would be defining the business process by building a competitive infrastructure
(Monczka et al. 2015). This would in turn develop in creating a leverage of logistic, which

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initially would be synchronizing the supply with the demand and help in measuring the
performance of the organization globally.
There are a total of 7 steps that are executed by the Gracious Industries for
implementing their business processes. The 7 stages namely are – strategic planning process,
demand planning processes, supply planning processes, procurement processes, warehousing
process, order fulfilment process and transportation process (Snyder et al. 2016).
The first stage is considered to be one of the most important step in the business
processes in supply chain management. Strategic planning involves the basic involvement of
the strategic aspects of supply chain design and the strategic sourcing of the electronic
equipment (Richter and Walther 2016). The process of the strategic design process involves
steps like design, execution and optimization of the model that initially requires supply chain
planning application. In this stage, aspects like locations, lanes of transportation, resources of
the materials and the products are find and estimated and modelled in the execution planning
depending on the network of the supply chain. In this aspect, it would be more helpful for the
organization for responding immediately and in correct manner in respect to the new
developments made in the tracking alert situation in the network of supply chain. The
strategic sourcing is the process which would initially would be helping the organization for
identifying the minimized sets of the core suppliers, along with whom the organization would
be establishing a table relationship defining the parameters. These parameters would initially
help in setting the procurement execution. The stage is also responsible for the evaluation of
the vendors by analysing their purchase statistics. This helps Gracious Industries for the
evaluation of the potential suppliers of the electronic parts from their potential manufacturers.
Therefore, the management of the performance evaluation would spread and contract of the
compliance analytics would be done for enabling all the necessary strategic sourcing process
(Brindley 2017).

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The second stage of the business process is the demand planning process. It would be
required for Gracious Industries to know the current demand of the electronic equipment for
the understanding the current need of the customers as well as understanding the market. In
this steps the processes involves with Gracious Industries are lifecycle planning, forecasting,
promotional planning and consensus demand. The forecasting process involves with the
process of predicting the future of demand of the electronic parts which basically is done
depending on the judgemental data collection. The forecast could be created by using various
methods like casual analysis, human judgement, and combination of sets of historical data or
statistical analysis (Govindan et al. 2015). The exponential smoothing and linear regression
process are most commonly used by Gracious Industries for forecasting the future demand of
the equipment. The lifecycle planning is an integrated part of the demand which helps the
organization in making simulated analysis based on forecasting data which launch, growth
and discontinues the phases of the different products. The promotional planning process
enables Gracious Industries for promoting special events involving their offers and extent of
the supply chain management for attracting more manufacturer for supplying their products
globally. This process of promotional plans help the organization in the calculating the
necessary casual techniques for measuring the past promotional impacts of the projected
designing future plans. The consensus demand planning is the process of where there would
be a creation of consensus demand by integrating the available information of the supply
chain. This would help the organization in planning the sales plan and promotional budget.
The supply planning is the process where safety of stock planning, network planning,
outsourcing processes, distribution, and customer and supplier collaboration process is done
order to create a sustainable supply planning (Fredendall and Hill 2016). The stock safety
planning arrive at the appropriate level of safety of the process which initially would be
helping in stocking the inventory for all the intermediate and finished products. This would

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help them in targeting the service level too. The supply network planning is used by Gracious
Industries for calculating the necessary amount of quantities, which would be required for
delivering to the location to match the customer demand and maintaining the level of service.
Outsourcing process would be enabling Gracious Industries for outsource the materials
manufactured by the manufacturing companies for supply. It helps in spreading the products
to the third parties as subcontractors. The distribution planning process in this step helps the
organization in determining the short term strategies which would help Gracious Industries
for allocating the available supply for meeting the demand and replenishing locations. The
customer collaboration process would help the organization to let the vendors allow for
taking responsibilities for planning the levels of inventories at the location of customer (Cox
and Atkinson 2018). The supply collaboration would enable the organization for receiving
the demand and stock the information and perform replenishment planning tasks for the
manufacturer.
The procurement process is also considered to be an important process as it helps in
purchasing orders, receipting the confirmation and invoice verifications (Stevens and Johnson
2016). The receipt confirmation process helps the organization in informing other
departments at Gracious Industries about the shipment receiving factor and conform qualities
for ordered goods.
The warehousing process is an important step as it storing the imported goods is one
of the most important aspect in the supply chain management of the organization. Storing the
inventories is required before exporting them to various markets or businesses. The process is
involved with steps like inbound processing, warehousing, and storage, cross docking and
physical inventory (Korpela, Hallikas and Dahlberg 2017). The inbound processing is done
for external procurement process that would eventually occur when the products have been
received to the other end. The outbound process helps Gracious Industries in preparing the

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ships goods for reaching their destinations. The cross docking process would help in
merchandise in the distribution centre or the particular warehouse, where the goods would be
brought from the goods receipt directly to the goods issue without being stored (Wang et al.
2016). The warehousing and storage helps the organization in warehousing and internal
movements along with storage of the materials. And finally the physical inventory would
helping by supporting all the activities for planning and executing the physical inventory of
the materials.
The order fulfilment process is a major step which helps the organization in
communicating with both the ends of the supply and demand chain, both the manufacturer
and the seller. The process involves with steps like sales order processing and billing
processes. The sales order processing helps the organization with the sales and order related
processes that allows the order entry, pricing and scheduling order for fulfilment
(Pradabwong et al. 2017). The billing processes have been considered through all the
activities from issuing the invoice to the payment incoming from the client.
The final stage of the business process that us conducted by Gracious Industries is the
transportation process. The process involves the planning of transportation, execution of the
plans and costing of the process of transportation (Peng et al 2016). The planning steps
consist of planning process which would be creating a transportation plan that is optimized
and executable for Gracious Industries for implementing the transportation planning. The
execution planning would initially be comprising the covers of the plans that integrated the
solution of executing and monitoring the process of transportation. The costing process
would be calculating the freight costs and settling the fixed cost of those cargos.

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Major Control Risk for Gracious Industries
There could be various kind of risks oriented with the supply chain business process
of Gracious Industries. The risk could be in any form of danger, which would affect loss of
business for Gracious Industries while operating their businesses. The control risks could be
divided in to two categories – internal and external.
The internal risks comprises of all the risks that occurs internally of the organization
and the business industry. The internal risks are supply risk, demand risk, process risk,
control risk, manufacturing risk, business risk, mitigation risk, cultural risk, financial risk,
schedule risk, legal risk, project environmental risk and socio-political risk.
The risk involving supply could be potentially related to the actual disturbance of the
flow of products and information, which emanates inside the network of the company itself.
The risk associated is associated with the supply of the products not being delivered to the
organization in the allotted time (Heckmann, Comes and Nickel 2015). This would affect the
inward flow of the resources which would enable the operations which would take place and
therefore would apply input risks. It includes – the dependency of the suppliers, the
consolidation of the market of supply, having the quality and the management related issues,
which would be arise from sourcing the products from off-shore, and the length of the
replenishment lead times.
Demand risk is the potential risk that actually disrupts the flow of the products and the
information within the network of the business. The demand risk could be a failure on either
of the high or low part of the market, accommodating the level of the demand (Ho et al.
2015).
The risk of process are the sequences of the value-adding along with managerial
works that are undertaken by Gracious Industries. The risks related to processing affects the

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Gracious Industry’s internal ability of producing and supplying materials to their destined
places. This also have a consequences to the breakdown of the core operating and
manufacturing capability of the organization’s processing capability. This includes the
manufacturing variability of yield, the equipment reliability, limiting capacity and
outsourcing the key business processes.
The control of the supply chain of the organization would be enabling the
assumptions, along with the rules, system and the production of the organizational units
which initially governs the Gracious Industries control over the business processes
(Giannakis and Papadopoulos 2016). The control related risk are related with the quantities,
size of the batch, safety stocks and arising from the application of the rules.
The manufacturing risk in an internal factor of work in supply industry of electronic
goods. The risk related with the manufacturing is caused due to the disruptions of the internal
operations or processes. The business oriented risks are caused by changes in the key
personnel, management, structure of the business, and reporting or the process of business
like communication of the purchasers, along with the suppliers and the customers
(Heckmann, Comes and Nickel 2015). The mitigation risk are caused due negligence of the
organization for applying contingencies at the proper places at times of crisis. The cultural
risks are caused due to the business’s variant tendency of cultural dilemma where negative
information could be used or shared in the organization.
The financial risk could range from unfavourable or unexpected in the optimum
exchange rates which eventually could result in the bankruptcy of the suppliers. Other form
of risks that could include in the category in overrunning from the budget of the estimated
cost of the project, limitation finding, changes in the constructive and missing the milestones,
which would be requiring the additional funding (Ho et al. 2015). The financial risks also

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would be encompassing the unexpected overrun of the cost which might be linked with the
other risk factors like the scope of the work which would be required for completing the work
successfully.
Mostly all the work in the supply chain business process is mostly involved with the
work schedule that is made for the serving each of the component of the work on time.
Therefore, the scope of the work in highly necessary for delivering the work on time. The
change of schedule are often of natural disaster.
The legal risks are related to the disputes or the different interpretations of the
contractual obligations and for not meeting the requirements also. Therefore, the misuse of
property are often considered as legal risks, especially in events like infringement is
considered as a possibility (Heckmann, Comes and Nickel 2015).
The project organization risks are generally resulted for not having the right people or
the equipment in the right place at the correct time (Ho et al. 2015). And finally the socio-
political risk regulates in the environment changes in response of the new government or the
increasing awareness of the inequitable social conditions, which may or may not be existing
in the organization experience.
The other external risks are environmental risks, human behaviour risks and physical
plant risks. These risks are oriented from outside of the organization and the market in which
Gracious Industries are involved.
ERP Features and Function used for control risk and achieving business
objectives
There have been huge trend of using ERP software for getting relevant solutions for
problems regarding the traction among the enterprises in any kind of business processes. The
ERP are basically used for increasing the efficiency of the work at the organization (Bajaj

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and Ojha 2016). The business processes like accounting, marketing, production, sales and
inventory would be integrated in the ERP platform which would be implemented in the
organization. Therefore, with the software be implemented, it would be more easy for
collecting and accessing data in the organization, along with streamlining all the cross-
departmental workflows. The ERP software would also provide assistance to the managers
and all the potential stakeholders for follow up with all the details of work in the
organization.
The feature of promoting collaboration of the software would eventually help in
achieving the business objectives of the organization and it would also help assessing the
control risk. ERP breaks down all the walls that rises in the departments (Qian, Schmidt and
Scott 2015). The soil of data would be integrated and the process of superhighway will link
local workstations in the industry together. This setup would be allowing all the teams for
operating in empty spaces which would eventually help them in having collaboration inside
the ERP platform as well as the organization. It would also help in managing the offshore
businesses units and making a cognitive approach for the innovation and team play, making
business more competitive.
The increase in the data security would help the organization in managing in data
security. This feature would eventually help Gracious Industries in having a proper
scheduling from any loss of data related to shipments and cargos. The flexibility of locking
the sensitive data for creating a more secured area of work (Yoshihara and Okabe 2015). It
would also help in making unpredictable forecasting of the work. The ERP reporting tool
uses analytic techniques which helps them in inconsistencies of unpredictable and
unfavourable situations.

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ERP Vendors
The first ERP vendor assessed in the report are offered from the organization known
as SYSPRO. The organization have been designing ERP software especially for
manufacturing and supply chain management organizations. The organization have been in
the business for more than 40 years and have acquired a reputation in the field (Tavaves et al.
2016). The software provided by the organization consists of robust tools like accounting
accessibility, planning of documents, and management of work order, management of project
and also control of the inventory. It would be easier for keeping track of the data and all the
other necessary kind of information from one place to another, as having the information
related to the business under one platform of working would be ideal for working. The
organization also produces BOT agents that helps in the process of charge of the automated
redundant and providing fast support for all aspects of the operations.
Accountmate is an organization that produces efficient accounting software along
with optimum security and data monitoring processes. The organization have been establishes
in the year of 1984, where the organization stared their fortune building for selling all the
necessary software required for working in industries like manufacturing and supply chain
markets. Initially the organization was sold to Softline, then best software organization. The
organization have been building effective ERP software that have been provided assistance in
maintaining all the relevant data of supply chain, retail and order allocations. This software
have been implied to more than 200 industries (Saleh and Thoumy 2018). Accountmate
targets small rated organization for using their software as they are more comfortable in
designing accounting software that could handle medium input of data system. Therefore, the
organization is more famous in making ERP those could be applicable to small scale
manufacturing industries.

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Microsoft have been one of the best organization and largest organization of software
manufacturer. They have been the leader in the global market of software. The Microsoft
dynamics GP provides one the best ERP software that could be helpful for any form and kind
of industries either in higher scales of production from lower scale of production.
Comparing the features and functionalities of two ERP software package
The ERP package provided by Syspro costs around $10 to $100 for packages with the
basic features available in the work. However, the premium services of the software is
offered for a higher amount ranging from $200 to $1000 per month. This premium package
comes with services twice a year and warranty.
The package offered by Microsoft Dynamic 365 varies from the variety of use of the
software in their various aspects in the field of work. The software costs differently if it used
in SQL server room, remote desktop or maintenance room (Tavaves et al. 2016). The range
various from $227.27 per month, $138.89 per month and $625 per month.
The ideal vendor and ERP Software for Gracious Industries
From the case study, it could clearly be pointed that Gracious Industries had been
having issues regarding their key accounting department. There have been significant loss of
data. Therefore, it would be ideal for Gracious Industries for implementing the monthly plan
of Microsoft as per their requirement as the packaging system of Microsoft Dynamic 365
comes as per the requirement (Saleh and Thoumy 2018). The basic requirement for the
organization in their accounting department and having ERP in all the departments would be
a loss for the company. Therefore, the vendor Microsoft and ERP software Microsoft
Dynamic 365 would be ideal for the organization.

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Conclusion
Henceforth, the report could be concluded by providing a brief overview of the
Gracious Industries along with their issues. The report have provided a brief description of
the business processes of the organization. The business processes have elaborately described
all the steps of the business of Gracious Industries taken for operating the business. The
report have also listed all the control risks that could occur while operating all the business
processes of supply chain management in the organization. The report have also provided
necessary ERP features and functions that would help the organization in solving the issues
faced by Gracious Industries.

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