Case Study: Strategic Information Systems for Gracious Industries ERP

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the Gracious Industries' strategic information system, focusing on the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. It begins with an executive summary outlining the key aspects of the analysis, followed by an introduction to Gracious Industries, a company with 35 employees generating $10.5 million in sales. The report details the company's business requirements, including key business processes such as human capital management, planning, inventory management, customer relationship management, and reporting. It also addresses potential control risks associated with ERP implementation, such as ineffective strategic planning and inadequate business process re-engineering, along with mitigation strategies. The system requirements for the ERP implementation are discussed, including integration, automation, data analysis, reporting, customer relationship management, accounting, and visibility and tracking. The report further explores software and vendor selection, comparing and contrasting different vendors based on their features and suitability for Gracious Industries. The conclusion summarizes the findings and recommendations for a successful ERP implementation.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Name of the Student:
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Executive Summary
This report particularly consists of the primary attenuation that can be placed forward is that
all of the methods in relation to the Enterprise Resource Learning that has been discussed in
detail along with the methods of how can they be implemented within a specific business
organization in order to have a smoother proceedings in relation to the activities. Along with
this, a much faster movement towards the growth of the organization as well. All of the
business processes in accordance to the working activities that is carried out within the
Gracious Industries has been mentioned in detail as well. All these business processes have
been in relation the Enterprise Resource Planning. Along with the business processes, the
risks along with the mitigation of the risks have been discussed in detail that might be the
possibly arising while the activities are getting carried out within the Gracious Industries. On
the other hand, the basic system requirements that need to be met by the Gracious Industries
in order to achieve the already set business objectives have been placed forward with little
details. Some of the vendors who have been providing with the best software in relation to
the Enterprise Resource Planning have been discussed in detail as well as the respective
vendors have been placed under evaluation in relation to the features that they provide
specifically along with the contrast and comparison.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Business Requirements of the Industry......................................................................................3
Key business processes for the Gracious Industries..............................................................3
Control risks for business processes......................................................................................5
System Requirements of the Industry........................................................................................6
Software Selection.....................................................................................................................8
Vendor Selection......................................................................................................................10
Comparison and Contrast of the vendors.............................................................................10
Selection of Vendor for the Gracious Industries..................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
Gracious industries are referred to a business organization having only a resource of
35 employees but generating a revenue related to sales of around $10.5 million in reference to
that past year. Gracious industries have been in business for more than a period of 40 years,
having supplied electronic goods to all of the different business in requirement for the goods,
along with that of the hardware as well as supermarket stores (Costa et al ., 2016). On one
hand, the company has been under the experience with the rise in the sales related to the
product that they have been selling as a reason of the new products that they have been
introducing down their menu from time to time. On the other hand, Gracious industries have
undergone the loss of some of the prime accounts relating to the fact of the prices of the
goods that they have been selling as failure to match with the prices that have been prevailing
within the market of the similar goods. This report in general, describes all of the key steps
that the Gracious industries needs to adapt in order to update a new software to take their
business to the next level (Seethamraju, 2015). For the adaption of the company to the newly
developed software, this report in detail provides with all of the information that need to be
considered. These include the likes of the updated business requirements, the requirements
for the system, selection of the particular software along with the selection of the vendors
needed for the upgrade of the business carried out within the Gracious industries (Tarhini et
al ., 2015). This report also states the fact that the key steps that have been considered
important to be undertaken shall be in consideration to the facts as well as methods related to
the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

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Business Requirements of the Industry
Key business processes for the Gracious Industries
Making a proper transition from the traditional system of managing to that of the
commercial process of enterprise resourcing planning can be provisioning a great boost to the
business activity of the Gracious Industries. However, there lies the specific understanding
related to the profitability along with the growth of the business having the entire dependency
upon the quality of the activities that are being carried out within the Gracious Industries
(Altamony et al ., 2016). While having the transformation of the traditional business to that of
the commercial business in abidance to the Enterprise Resource Planning can be a difficult
form of transition for the short term, but is profitable and developed in relation to the long
term effects of it. The five key business processes of the Gracious Industries are,
 Management of Human Capital- this particular process manages as well as handles all
the employees who are considered as assets by the company, expected to perform in
absence of the ERP system, which can turn out to be tricky. Management of Human
Capital provisions the workers with a current value as well as the projection towards
their future based values belonging to the investment the Gracious Industries makes
(Madanhire and Mbohwa, 2016). The utilization of the HCM functions can turn out to
be profitable for the ERP suite providing with a boost within the efficiency and the
cost together. The Human Resource departments carry the potential of automating a
number of time-consuming paper related work such as the likes of evaluations as well
as payroll. Enterprise Resource Planning will also provision with the allowance of the
Human Resource staff to handle the benefits related to the administration, standards
of compliance, documentation of the personnel actions as well as maintenance of the
employee related records.

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 Planning- as a reason of the Enterprise Resource Planning being designed to carry out
the management as well as analysis of the data, they provide with an excellent hand
within the improvement of the planning procedures. ERP reports will provision the
Gracious Industries to have a look at the breakdown related to the previous job data,
along with the history of the timetables that has been broken up by the particular
departments within the Gracious Industries (Sadgrove, 2016). This particular
functionality will provision the allowance to the Gracious Industries to properly
allocate the required work force in order to carry out the future procedures.
 Management of Inventory- while most of the working industries have the proper force
for the management of the inventory, switching over to an Enterprise Resource
Planning software will provision for a much greater flexibility as well as enhanced
improvements within the management of inventory present within the premise of the
Gracious Industries (Hopkin, 2018). ERP distribution related software will Provision
the Gracious Industries to manage the levels of stock as well as the refilling of the
stock in relation to the electronic parts that have run out.
 Integration of Customer Relation- Management of Customer relationship belongs to a
completely different suite within the ERP software related application. The CRM has
the primary focus upon the improvement of the customer relations, on the other hand
the Enterprise Resource Planning has its focus upon the streamlining related to the
processes being carried out within the business of the Gracious Industries.
 Simple Reporting- Reporting is considered to be the major of every single business, as
well as the business carried out within the Gracious Industries (Chang et al ., 2015).
For the Gracious industries, the reporting can be tedious process without the usage of
the Enterprise Resource Planning software, as well as consuming a lot of time
together.

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Control risks for business processes
There is no existence for any company to carry out all of the business activities
without the inclusion of any risks that come handy with the activities that are being carried
out within the Gracious Industries. With the implementation of the business activities, the
clear mindset is to experience a specific change within the business activities that have been
carried out till the time the Enterprise Resource Planning software has been implemented
(Fernandez, Zaino and Ahmad, 2018). This specifically attracts all of the risks that have been
mentioned below along with the control procedures for the same,
 Ineffective strategic planning- the strategic issues related to that of the Business done
by the Gracious industries need to be addressed with the ERP system as a method for
the justification of the project that has been developed in order to implement the ERP
software.
 Poor skills of the project team- the formation of a poor team of project members
refers to the choosing of a specific project team in which all of the members can bring
in the change within the working of the Gracious Industries by utilizing the
experience, knowledge as well as their dedication (Shen, Chen and Wang, 2016). The
skills along with the attributes of the individual member shall need to be studied and
there upon taken the decision to include that particular individual within the project
team to avoid the related risks.
 Inadequate Business Process Re-engineering- generally, the risk associated with the
implementation shall be reduced greatly along with the conduction of a specific BPR
exercise right before the procedure for the selection of EPR is carried out (Jagoda and
Samaranayake, 2017). This specifically drives all of the functional requirements for
the implementation of the Enterprise Resource Planning within the Gracious
Industries in order to avoid the upcoming risks.

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System Requirements of the Industry
The possible Enterprise Resource Planning features for the meeting of the business
objective by the Gracious Industries have been described in brief (Izhar et al ., 2018). These
are,
 Integration- the functionality related the ERP forms a major part of the solution,
which makes this particular software related to that of ERP much different from the
other existing software delivering quite similar services. The process of integration
allows the huge number of capabilities that are being offered by the ERP systems to
work efficiently together following harmony (Saade and Nijher, 2016).
 Automation- the most basic service that is provided by the Enterprise Resource
Planning is considered to be automation. This specific capability of the ERP
provisions with the service of automation regarding all the existing tedious tasks
along with the inclusion of the services related to that of the entry, payroll, reporting,
invoicing as well as the other existing services.
 Analysis of Data- this service specifically carried out by the Enterprise Resource
Planning provisions with the finding of the related trends as well as all the patterns
belonging to the processes, which is carried out within the Gracious Industries
(Hamerman et al ., 2015). This service particularly puts a reflection upon the
effectiveness of the tasks performed along with the provision of the forecasts related
to the future of the business within the Gracious Industries.
 Reporting- Enterprise Resource Planning places with the detailed reports that appear
to be intuitive along with being actionable as well relevant. In addition to this, this
provisions with the allowance of completely traceable along with the assurance of
every single error within the system as well as inconsistency.

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 Management of Customer Relationship- firstly, the CRM is considered to be a great
option for the Gracious Industries having a customer base, which is a difficulty to be
contained only within the spreadsheets (Jha, Saini and Jha, 2018). Secondly, CRM in
relation to the centralized customer information within the ERP provisions with the
allowance of having a quick access to all the information related to the billing
procedures as well as the shipments of the customers.
 Accounting- management of the finances is considered to be the prime function
within the business of the Gracious Industries. The ERP account system provides a
helping hand towards the management of the processes including the likes of payable
accounts, receivable accounts, management of the fixed-asset as well as the
management of tax (Khan and Faisal, 2015).
 Visibility and tracking- another major aspect of the Enterprise Resource Planning is
having the potential to provision with the comprehensive visibility. Many of systems
related the Enterprise Resource Planning consists of the technology to track all of the
finished products along with that of the raw materials from that of the manufacturer to
the delivery (Vaidyanathan and Fox, 2017). Much of this existing service is made
possible with a provisioned help from the high level of integration that is completely
provided by the Enterprise Resource Planning Systems.
Software Selection
There exists a number of Enterprise Resource Planning vendors online having a
differentiated website from each other delivering with the software of implementing the ERP
procedures within a business organization (Haddara, 2016). Some of these are,
 NetSuite ERP- is considered to be a complete as well as scalable ERP solution, which
is completely based upon the cloud having targeted the high-growing as well as mid-

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sized business organizations along with that of the large scale organizations together.
This software aims at the automation of both the front as well as backend office
processes. All of these processes include the likes of finance management,
management of revenue, fixed assets, management of orders, billing procedures as
well as management of the inventory (Haddara, 2018). Following this method, it
provisions the entire organization starting from the top management to the clerical
posts to have a customizable view upon the prime performance indicators as well as
the reports related to their part played within the business proceedings of the
organization.
 Sage Intacct- is referred to a software having an innovative solution belonging to the
financial management working entirely upon the cloud as well. Along with the
powerful combination of the Sage as well as the Intacct, particularly the Sage
Business Cloud puts forward the most effective capabilities of both the respective
companies considered within this scenario. Bringing the services of Cloud computing
within the services of finance along with that of the accounting, the software provided
by the Sage Intacct is considered to be the most preferred software within the field of
business in relation to the applications of Finance, which is again the most prime
pillar of having success within a specific business organization (Ranjan, Jha and Pal,
2016). Start-ups along with the established organizations can heavily rely upon this
software to experience growth within their organization and improve the efficiency of
the business processes, which they carry out. This software particularly, automates all
the day – to – day operations provisioning the administrator of the related business
organization to have a better attention to every single process that is being carried out.
 SYSPRO- is commonly referred to as an Enterprise Resource Planning platform
specially designed to provide with a helping hand specifically towards the sector

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dealing with the processes of manufacturing along with the integration,
synchronization as well as controlling of the manufacturing processes along with.
This particular platform can be developed with the help of the cloud or as well can be
installed within the premise. Referring to the powerful features of this application is
the presence of a number of modules, which are having the sole responsibility to help
the businesses in regard to its growth. All of the modules have the primary focus not
only upon the processes related to that of manufacturing but also towards the other
aspects related to that of the organization utilizing it (Niu et al ., 2017). In addition to
this, this platform has the separate ability to meet with the high demands of the
automated procedure belonging to the warehouse by having an effective management
towards distribution. This provides as a boost towards the profit gained by the
manufacturer by having a special monitoring upon the management related to that of
the finances by the offering of the excellence upon the financial as well features to
that of the accounting.
Vendor Selection
Comparison and Contrast of the vendors
In the above mentioned discussion regarding the three most prevalent vendors
offering the business organizations with the software related to that of the Enterprise
Resource Planning such as the likes of NetSuite ERP, Sage Intacct as well as SYSPRO have
the basic common feature provisioning the business organization towards their growth
(Borissova et al ., 2016). This specifically refers to the deployment of the services, which are
being offered by all the three software that specifically can be utilized from the cloud
anywhere at any point of time as needed by the business organization.

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Secondly, NetSuite ERP as well as Sage Intacct consists of the inclusion of a common
feature, which refers to the management of all the cash - flow along with the management of
all the financial concerns that arise within the business process of a particular organization in
particular. However, the SYSPRO does not have any feature relating to the management of
processes that are completely related to the management of the financial issues faced by the
business related organizations.
Thirdly, SYSPRO is an Enterprise Resource Planning tool that provisions the business
organizations with a specific platform to carry out all of the activities taking place within that
particular business organization. However, the primary feature of this being a preferred
software for ERP is that of the brand name, which it carries along side (Amani and Fadlalla,
2016). SYSPRO has been in business within this same field for more than a time of 40 years,
hence have been in the service having a broad base of customer as well as the goodwill of the
Customer.
Fourthly, SYSPRO software platform meant for the Enterprise Resource Planning
carries the inclusion of APIs as well as integrations not taking into consideration the type of
deployment. This can be again seamlessly integrated with that of the product in relation to the
existing external systems as well as the features particularly meant for the industrial
organizations belonging to the particular field of business. However, referring to the other
two software of Enterprise Resource Planning, both of the two mentioned software do not
have the inclusion of this particularly mentioned feature (Motaki and Kamach, 2017). As a
result, SYSPRO is considered to be the most preferred software platform in relation to the
implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning within the business related organizations.
Eventually, all of the three-mentioned software share a common feature. This
particular common feature in reference to all the above - mentioned software is that all of the