Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Analysis and Case Study Assignment

This assignment delves into the intricacies of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, exploring the distinction between business functions and processes, and examining how these processes span functional lines within an organization. The assignment includes a detailed case study of Amazon's online shopping experience, analyzing the information flow between Marketing and Sales, Accounting and Finance, and Supply Chain Management. It involves creating a process map and an event process chain (EPC) diagram to illustrate the online shopping journey. Furthermore, it explores how Amazon could leverage SAP ERP, specifically the SD module, to streamline order processing. The assignment also discusses how ERP systems simplify customer data management, delivery date setting, and price customization, with a focus on master data. It then examines the use of social media channels for marketing campaigns, how Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can enhance marketing strategies, and compares CRM and Supply Chain Management (SCM), highlighting their similarities, differences, and areas of impact. Finally, the assignment assesses how the absence of sales forecasting impacts a company like Fitter Snacker and how SAP ERP PP can address this challenge. This comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights into ERP implementation and its benefits for businesses.

Running head: ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING 1
Student’s name
University
Course
Date

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Question 1
1. Distinguish between a business function and a business process. Describe how a
business process cuts across functional lines in an organization. How might a manager
organize his or her staff in terms of business processes rather than functional
departments? What benefits would there be with this type of organization? What
challenges would it pose?
Solution
A business functions refers to a business activity like production scheduling, order
processing, cash- flow management, recruiting of staff. A business process refers to a
collections functions that takes either one or more inputs kinds and produces an output that
creates a value to a customer.
A business process transpires when variety of activities are accomplished in more than
functional area. Creating and selling of products to clients is a process that includes,
production, sales and accounting functions. People who are working on each and every
activity must work as a team to ensure that sales of goods go smoothly- taking customers
order, scheduling productions, shipping the goods, recording all necessary data about creation
and sales and the records of customer’s payment (Hamidi, 2018).
Business managers today are thinking their strategies basing on business processes that
integrates the functional areas of business, these promotes competitiveness and efficiency. A
vital aspects of functional areas integration is the ability to share data between the functional
areas of business. And the business partners. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software
enables this capability by utilizing a single database (Fan, 2018).
In the current high competitive environment, the better an organization can integrates its
business activities to every functional area the more it will be successful. Integration also

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helps in improving the cash flow and communication. Every section of information systems
relies of data of other business functional areas (Fiaz, Ikram & Ilyas, 2018).
Question 2
Go to the Amazon Web site (http://www.amazon.com), and step through the process of
buying an item without actually purchasing the item. You then answer the following
questions in details:
2. a. Based on this experience, describe the flows of information between Marketing and
Sales, Accounting and Finance, and Supply Chain Management at Amazon. How easy is
it to buy that item? (You have to think from 'Supplier' point of view to answer this
question in order to improve the customers’ shopping experience with your company!)
Solution
It is very easy for a customers to use Amazon online shopping by following the following
order process:
1. Marketing and sales: Customers select an item they need to purchase and add to the
shopping cart.
2. Accounting and finance- receives data from sales and marketing that the clients need
to checkout
3. Accounting and finance- calculate total payments that the customer need to pay
4. Supply chain management – supply order to the client after receiving confirmation
from the finance and accounting department regarding the payment status.

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b. Create a process map that describes your online shopping experience at
www.amazon.com. Include the steps involved in the processing and shipment of your
order.
Solution
The steps that are involved in the above online process map of Amazon are:
Step 1: The customer choose the product to purchase
Step 2: The customer submit an order for processing
Step 3: the system checks the availability of the commodity, if out of stock the customer gets
the message that the commodity is out of stock, but if the stock is available the process move
to the next step
Step 4: The commodity is prepared for delivery
Step 5: The delivery process starts and the shipment notice is send to the customer.

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c. Develop an event process chain (EPC) diagram based on your answer to question b
Solution
Check customer order
information
Check customer
order
Event
Order
confirmed
Result
event
Support
system
Input
Order
request
form
Customer
support
centre
Organization unit

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d. If Amazon is using SAP ERP, how would they use the ERP system to process your order?
Use the SAP ERP SD module to answer this question.
Solution
SAP ERP that assist in Sales and distribution is a logistic module component that help
customers in challenges that are related to sales, quotations, order and billing. It works hand
in hand with PP and MM modules. SAP SD modules does the following when processing
order (Seethamraju, 2015).
SAP-SD contain a master data which keep track on each and every transaction in the data, the
SD master data (MD) comprises both material data and customer data, credit management
and record of conditions of prices. This module assist in processing of orders and cash.
SAP-SD-BF (basic function)- the configuration of SAP SP leads to effective and efficient
across the entire basic function in that are involved in sales area and distribution area.
SAP-SD-SHP (shipping) - this module is relates to shipping and the delivery of goods. The
commodities are shipped nightly and supplied to the client. There are many different
categories of shipping, these module aids in tracking every product used for every delivery.
SAP-SD-TBA (Transportation) - it works together with shipping. The medium of
transportation of some products differs, and these modules helps in tracking the
transportation data.
SAP-SD-FTT (Foreign trade) - these feature helps the organization to handle information
relating to foreign trade, it includes both imports and exports.
SAP-SD-BIL

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SAP-SD-CAS (sales support): from sale to maintenance, customers regularly with sales
management team, this module record and report data stored from sales up to customers
feedback.
Some of the major areas handle by SAP-SD modules:
 Compromise inquiries, pre-sales actions and quotation creation
 Sales order creation and sales order processing
 Shipping
 Billing, it takes into account billing documentation and creation of invoices.
3. How does an ERP system like SAP simplify looking up customer numbers, setting a
delivery date, and charging a unique price to a given customer? Include a discussion of
master data
Solution
SAP’s ERP abridges search of customer number by consenting users to find customer
numbers among various parameters like distribution channel
The date of delivery is calculated in the SAP ERP by taking into account what is available in
the stock and what is scheduled for production, the raw materials at hand or when the new
raw materials are acquired. The existing orders are factors that SAP ERP considers when
considering if the delivery date would be met. The SAP ERP system considers the
organization working days and days when it is shut down.
Prices of commodities are consistent with the use of SAP ERP because every customer will
be configured with a unique pricing and some discounts, if it is applicable. There is no any
error expected to be made by the clerk that deal with sales, these is because the prices are
fixed when orders for commodities is saved in the SAP ERP (Kukreja, Bajaj & Sachdeva,
2018).

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SAP ERP master data is fairly stable when it comes to storing data about commodities and
customers. It is very important to keep this data very accurately so that it can it can be used
when carrying out order processes. For instance, when imputing a customer number and
recording a sales order, the pricing details, payment information, shipping address, billing
address and the company name. All these data are retrieved from the master data. This
enables the clerk to just key in the customer number and the SAP accomplished the rest of the
work. The outcome is very accurate and consistent ordering system.
Question 4
Assume you are the marketing manager for a large pet food company, such as Iams. You
need to launch a new marketing campaign. What social media channels would you use for
this campaign? How can CRM help your new strategy?
Solution
The social media channels that is worth considering here include Facebook, blogs, You Tube
and twitter.
Although marketing campaign might be very expensive, but if the marketing department can
strategize, execute, and asses the campaign very well, then the CRM will add value to the
organization.
It is important to note that in order for an organization to launch new campaign, it will need
scheduling of campaign events, allocate adequate resources and ensure that that all expenses
are covered. SAP ARP can also provide data to customers, this helps in improving direct
marketing of commodities of the organization.

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5. Compare customer relationship management and supply chain management. How are
they similar? How are they different? In which functional areas do they have the most
impact? In answering, consider the kinds of technologies used in each.
Solution
a. The similarities of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain
Management (SCM) is that they both allow a company to analyse their business processes
as well as the behaviour of customers. Though collection of data in large quantities and in
detailed for, both the CRM and SRM systems are the same because of their capability of
providing the organization management with data analysis and tools that are required in
order to run the organization effectively.
b. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system involve technologies, tools and
procedures that enables controlling, improvement and facilitation sales, support and other
related interaction with clients, prospects and the partners of the organization through the
business enterprise
Whereas the Supply Chain Management (SCM) is an information technology package
solution that gives an organization many advantages for coordination of entire material
acquisition, production, purchase and procurement and supply processes, it enhances
relationship with clients and contractors by creating a durable strategic alliances
(Ogunyomi,& Bruning, 2016).
Customer Relationship Management systems are geared towards front and business
processes, whereas the Supply Chain Management systems deals more on the backhanded
processes a company.

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Question 6
Currently, Fitter Snacker has no formal way of developing a sales forecast and sharing it
with Production. How do you think this inability to predict consumer demand has affected
their bottom line? How would the SAP ERP PP help to address this issue?
Solution
Currently, Filter Snacker has no formal way of developing a sales forecast and sharing it
with Production. How do you think this inability to predict consumer demand has affected
their bottom line? How would the SAP ERP PP help to address this issue?
Problems faced by Filter Snacker
With the use of normal way of formal way of developing sales forecast and sharing it
with the production, orders and quotes are recorded by the use of hand and a paper. Errors of
data entry and calculation errors are possible during the manual process of pricing, credit and
discounts. Orders and quotes are conveyed sometimes by paper-based and Fax. These can be
illegible or misinterpreted (Chofreh, Goni & Klemeš, 2018).
Information within Filter Snacker is communicated by fax, phone and word of mouth.
Typically, this means that Accounting, warehousing and sales lacks complete and updated
information. For instance, these might lead to the following challenges:
 Failure to forecast on the delivery dates and promise of inaccurate delivery dates of
commodities
 Failure to handle customer queries effectively which makes customers to be frustrated.
 Errors occur while calculating discounts, it may be less or too much of the actual amount

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 Errors occur when performing credit checks, therefore credits might be repudiated to
worthy customers (Fernandez, Zaino & Ahmad, 2018).
SAP ERP PP system treatment
The use of SAP ERP will have the following benefits
 Orders and quotes are handled electronically thereby it makes work easier by staff.
 Data is store in single central database, therefore it is easy to retrieve the required
information
 All calculations are programmed and process accurately thereby it reduce errors
 The use of SAP, ERP PP reduce delays and errors that causes frustration to customers.
Apart from taking an order there are many other phases that are involved with the SAP ERP
PP system:
a. Inventory sourcing
There is no proper coordination between marketing and production. Clients always ask if a
specific number of cases of a commodity will avail for shipping at a particular desired date.
In Fitter Snacker, the marketing representative cannot be sure of the goods that need to be
purchased based on the demand by customers. Although the warehouse representative might
be consulted but it will provide inaccurate information, based on the existing volume in the
stock and assumed level of productions (Kocaaga, Ervural, Demirel & Zaim, 2018).
Ideally, the delivery schedule and the production forecast would be use to answer customers
queries, but Fitter Snacker lacks a software that can be used to perform these tasks. There it is
possible for the organization to either run out of stock or have excess of commodities at hand.

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SAP ERP PP system treatment
The SAP ERP PP system schedule production and deliveries in the database. The system
does an automatic inventory sourcing, if the commodities are available the customer is
informed in time and if the production is out of stock it would be adjusted accordingly and
the customer is also notified (Günther, Colangelo, Wiendahl & Bauer, 2019).
b. Invoice problems
The data relating to sales is forwarded to the accounting department 3 times a week. The
accounting department fill in the data immediately when they get it and print out the invoices
for customers at the same time. Therefore, a billing may delay shipments, these would in fact
be sent separately by Filter Snacker. In case some amendments of the order is to be made
after the order has be placed, the accounting may or may not take into account to prepare the
correct invoice. Therefore, either an accurate or inaccurate invoice would be used.
c. SAP ERP PP system treatment
The SAP ERP PP system automatically creates invoices that are include with the cost of the
shipment. Errors are eliminated on the way. The accounting department use data that are key
in by the marketing department for sale, the records of accounting are accurate and up to date
(Perunthan, Das, Gour & Manwatkar, 2019).
d. Recording payments
Currently, the customers of Filter Snacker are supposed to a copy of their invoices together
with the payment. By doing this, the Filter Snacker accounting clerks will know the paid
orders and the ones which are pending. Customers rare do that, manual recording of payment
is time consuming for the accounting clerk (Chofreh, Goni & Klemeš, 2018).
SAP ERP PP system treatment
Customers are queried based on their invoice number (is) if it is not given
with the payment.

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