Gracious Industries: ERP System Selection Case Study Analysis

This report is a comprehensive case study analysis of Gracious Industries, a company seeking to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The report begins with an executive summary, outlining the objective of the study, which is to recommend an ERP solution to address the company's challenges. It details the business requirements of Gracious Industries, including key business processes like administration, manufacturing, operations, procurement, sales and operations planning, information security, customer service, and infrastructure, along with major control risks. The report then delves into the system requirements, highlighting potential ERP features and functions, such as better integration, automation, data analysis, customer relationship management, and accounting, to achieve business objectives and minimize control risks. Finally, the report examines ERP software and vendor selection, concluding with a recommendation for Oracle Financials. The document includes an introduction, discussion of the case study, business and systems requirements, software and vendor selection, and a conclusion, along with a list of references. This analysis is designed to provide a strategic information systems perspective for Gracious Industries.

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 objective of the report is knowing regarding the case study of Gracious
Industries and their selection of ERP software for the business. Enterprise resource
planning (ERP) could be referred to as a system of BPM, which helps in allowing any
particular company in accessing the complete system of every integrated application
for controlling the businesses as well as automating numerous back office
functionalities associated to HR, service and technologies. Few applications, which
could substantially makeup the specific systems, share the datum within numerous
different divisions of manufacturing, purchasing, accounting and sales. It can easily
and promptly facilitate the significant flow of information within all the business
functionalities so that connections could be managed with outside stakeholder. This
report has clearly described about three popular vendors of ERP and have
recommended Oracle Financials for Gracious Industries to reduce their complexities.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction...............................................................................................................3
2. Discussion................................................................................................................3
2.1 Brief Idea of the Case Study...............................................................................3
2.2 Business Requirements......................................................................................4
2.3 Systems Requirements.......................................................................................7
2.4 Software Selection............................................................................................10
2.5 Vendor Selection...............................................................................................12
3. Conclusion..............................................................................................................13
List of References.......................................................................................................15

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1. Introduction
Strategic information system is a kind of IS, which is being developed for
fulfilling corporate business initiatives. These are eventually intended in giving
competitive advantages to the respective company (Leon 2014). This type of
information system can deliver a service or product of low expenses, which is
differentiated and helps in focusing on any particular market segment. ERP is an
integrated management of each and every business process after being mediated by
technologies as well as software. This particular software is majorly referred to as
the basic division of BPM software with a suite of few integrated applications, utilized
for collection, storing, handling and even deducing data from numerous business
activities. The following report would be providing a brief description on the case
study of Gracious Industries. Details regarding business requirements, systems
requirements, software selection and vendor selection would be provided in the
report.
2. Discussion
2.1 Brief Idea of the Case Study
Gracious Industries is a popular private limited organization with 35 staff and
they had sales revenue over 10.5 million dollars in the last year. They have been
doing business for last 40 years and then supplies electronic parts to several
different businesses like supermarket and hardware stores. This particular
organization has experienced a subsequent growth in the orders for last few years
for few of the new green product ranges. They have recently lost few key accounts
since they are not able to produce few of the products at competitive price. Hence, to

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reduce the complexities related to efficient business process execution and they
have taken a decision of investing in a system of ERP for this purpose.
2.2 Business Requirements
Business requirements are the most critical activities of an organization, which
should be effectively performed for meeting several organizational goals and making
solution independent. The document of business requirements helps in detailing the
respective business solution for the project with customer need documentation and
expectation (Tarhini et al. 2015). Most of the businesses comprise of a specific
process that is helpful in assisting with project management as well as its
implementation. A significant opportunity for such improvement includes making
reasonable estimation of the project results and budget. Hence, it is needed to
include different requirements in the business after identifying the specifications in an
efficient manner. The major objectives and goals of this business requirement
document include gaining agreement with the stakeholders, providing a foundation
for communicating to the technology service provider and satisfying customer needs
(Seethamraju 2015). It even helps in providing input to the other project phases and
describing factors, which could meet business needs to a high level.
2.2.1 Key Business Processes for Gracious Industries
A business process is the set of few inter related tasks that can find their
execution points in the subsequent delivery of few products or services to a
customer. This business procedure is also defined as the collection of tasks and
activities, which when executed, eventually accomplishes the organizational goals
and objectives. The clearly defined inputs and output are well described with the help
of this business process so that added values are given to a service and product

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(Chofreh et al. 2014). Such distinct factors could be categorized into three parts,
which are management processes, supporting business processes and operational
processes. In the case study of Gracious Industries, they are doing business for
electronics parts and hence it is quite important for them to ensure that the business
processes are well executed. The major business processes of Gracious Industries
are provided in the following paragraphs:
i) Administration: The first business process of Gracious Industries is
administration. This particular business process ensures on-boarding of new staff
with various steps like providing them with new employee ID.
ii) Manufacturing: The second business process of this organization is
manufacturing of the parts (Tian and Xu 2015). Since, Gracious Industries mainly
deal with electronics parts, it is evident that these parts are needed to be
manufactured properly.
iii) Operations: Another important business process of Gracious Industries is
operations. The order to bill procedure involves every process, which is needed for
accepting an order, delivering a service as well as billing a customer.
iv) Procurement: This is yet another vital and significant business process of
the organization of Gracious Industries. It is needed to ensure procure to pay
procedure for inclusion of steps that are needed for securing different materials and
parts like purchasing, invoice reconciliation, accounts payable and receiving the
various items.
v) Sales and Operations Planning: Gracious Industries have focused on
sales and operations planning for the business, so that it becomes quite easier for
them to ensure plan to inventory process, after inclusion of every step needed for

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planning the inventory levels on the basis of factors like customer demands and
production capacities (Shen, Chen and Wang 2016).
vi) Information Security: The next distinctive and vital business process is
information security. This specific process checks for several threats in the systems
like access control lists for involvement of unnecessary and unused permissions.
vii) Customer Services: The process of customer service is required in
Gracious Industries for investigating customer complaints and also determining if
customers could owe for compensation (Ha and Ahn 2014). It is needed for driving
improvement to the company, since these could lead to business failure.
viii) Infrastructure: The final business process is to maintain the
infrastructure. It is extremely beneficial for an electronics company to perform
engineering assessments for identifying various risks.
2.2.2 Major Control Risks for the Business Processes
The major control risks for the several identified business processes in
Gracious Industries are as follows:
i) Infrastructure Risks: The infrastructure outages like failure in the basic
communication linkage could eventually trigger process failures. It is a specific kind
of operational risk that can affect the regular operations of Gracious Industries.
ii) Human Errors: The next vital control risk for the business processes of this
particular organization is human error (Kurbel 2016). Oversights and errors could
even result in lowest quality and failed procedures.
iii) Process Quality: The third distinctive and important control risk in the
business processes of Gracious Industries is process quality. This type of process

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quality leads to major failure and a lower quality procedure might not anticipate with
the real-world condition and might break down with the modifications in this business
environment.
iv) Information Technology Risk: Another distinctive and significant control
risk for business process would be information technology risk (Costa et al. 2016).
This type of technology error and security incident, which could disrupt and make the
process completely invalid.
2.3 Systems Requirements
Every computer software requires specific hardware component and other
software resource for being present on a system. Such distinctive prerequisites could
be termed as system requirement and could even be utilized as the guidance of the
computer. With the incrementing demands for the higher power of processing as well
as resource in the newest software version, the system requirement has the
tendency for increasing on time. There are both functional and non-functional
requirements in the organization and it helps in creating or updating a product,
software and system.
2.3.1 Possible ERP Features and Functions for achieving Business Objectives
and Minimization of Control Risks
The major features and characteristics of ERP in Gracious Industries are
provided in the following paragraphs:
i) Better Integration: Gracious Industries would be able to integrate the
various business procedures of the organization without much complexity. It would
ensure numerous abilities offered by ERP to work together efficiently (Chang et al.
2015). A completely integrated platform is required by which the users could

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analyse, conduct as well as monitor maximum of data driven tasks. With the help of
one database, this particular software can collect, store or analyse the data in
various departments. Hence, it helps in ensuring seamless communication in the
company and it decreases the discrepancies within the team with every related
expense or error. Such integration would also allow ensure CRM and increase
overall efficiency.
ii) Automation: The second feature is automation of the system. This
capability of the software helps in automating the most common tedious tasks with
order entries, accounting, reporting, invoicing and many more. This type of
automation eventually cuts down several hours that the staff try to spend on the
procedures after allowing them in focusing on several vital tasks (Tasevska, Damij
and Damij 2014). It even helps in optimization of the employers’ time by ensuring on
efficient working days. Thus, human error is reduced with the help of such distinct
software. Complexities regarding data migration could be easily eradicated with
automation and hence errors could end up costing the business to a huge amount.
iii) Data Analysis: As ERP helps in collection and processing of data from
each and every business functionality, it eventually helps in capitalizing on the
information via analysis. This specific functionality finds the patterns or trends within
the processes. Thus Gracious Industries would be able to reflect on the efficiency of
various tasks for providing forecast to the future business related decisions. They
can even analyse the data related to each and every business information like sales
data, production statistics, client information and many more (Antero 2015). ERP can
even help Gracious Industries in predicting demands, creating a budget as well as
analysing the functionalities of human resources. Proper analysis of data also offers

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easier accessibility to the most important business information for providing them
with the tools, needed for tracking organizational efficiency and productivity.
iv) Customer Relationship Management: Gracious Industries even is helpful
in maintaining customer relationship management with the customers. CRM is one of
the most significant alternative for various organizations, where the customer base
has subsequently become extremely large for the spreadsheets. These can work
effectively, only when the organizational management try to update the information.
Moreover, CRM in the system of ERP helps in centralizing customer data and even
allowing extremely quicker accessibility while working with all other parts of a system
(Saade and Nijher 2016). The integrated customer relationship management allows
the users in accessing the billing data as well as customer addresses while
processing shipment. These tools of CRM even helps in handling marketing
automation, lead management and sales pipeline activity. Gracious Industries could
easily design as well as implement the comprehensive solutions of customer care
with ERP software. They would be able to easily and promptly create various
campaigns, track the customers in the entire lifecycle of sales for ensuring customer
satisfaction. Numerous capabilities of customer service management of ERP can
improvise long term customer retention.
v) Accounting: This is yet another significant feature of ERP that can help
Gracious Industries in reducing the risks related to financial management. As they
have decided to make an investment on accounting software, ERP would be
extremely effective for them. ERP comprises of strong accounting tools and these
help in management of the processes such as accounts payable, fixed asset
management, tax management and accounts receivable (Kasemsap 2015). Several
systems are available, which could even manage numerous tax regulations and

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currencies, if the management would regularly do business abroad. The platforms of
ERP can provide stronger tools for management of all distinctive aspects of
revenues and sales in the business. This type of system even enables in automation
of several accounting functionalities like sales analysis, expense management,
payment processing and many more. Hence, it would improve processing time and
accuracy in the most effective manner.
2.4 Software Selection
There are numerous options of ERP software and vendors for Gracious
Industries that would be effective for the company to reduce the complexities and
issues faced by them.
2.4.1 Websites of 3 ERP Vendors with Description of Each Vendor and its
Products
The description of three ERP vendors and its products is provided below:
i) Microsoft Dynamics: The first popular and vital vendor of ERP is Microsoft
Dynamics (Mahmud, Ramayah and Kurnia 2017). It is a line of ERP and CRM
software application. This particular vendor consists of a group of ERP products that
are eventually aimed at various segments of market, which range from Dynamics GP
to Dynamics AX, being geared towards the medium to larger companies with legal
entity capabilities. The primary products of this ERP vendor include Microsoft
Dynamics 365 for Finance as well as Operations and Microsoft Dynamics 365
Business Central. The first product is an ERP and CRM SaaS solution that is
eventually meant for the larger and medium sized companies. Integration of the
features of Dynamics CRM and Dynamics AX comprise of few distinctive modules
for customer services, for sales enterprises, for financial and operation, for project

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service automation and even for marketing (Microsoft Dynamics 365. 2019). It gets
easily connected with PowerBI and Office 365. The second product is Microsoft
Dynamics 365 Business Central that is a CRM and ERP SaaS solution meant for
SME sized businesses. Integration of the features of Dynamics CRM and Dynamics
NAV comprise of few modules like for sales professionals, for marketing and for
financial and operation.
ii) Oracle e-Business Suite: The second vendor is Oracle e-Business suite
that is an integrated collection of business applications, required to automate CRM,
supply chain management and ERP processes in a company (Narimani et al. 2014).
The applications of this vendor help to reduce the complexities of different business
process management. In spite of having various acquisitions of other application
technologies and vendors like Siebel, People Soft and JD Edwards. It comprises of a
set of ERP, SCM and CRM computerized applications, which are being developed
and acquired by Oracle. It uses the core technology of Oracle relational DBMS
technology. The major products of this particular vendor of enterprise resource
management include Oracle CRM, Oracle Financials, Oracle Logistics and many
more (Oracle E-Business Suite Applications. 2019). Each of these products are
required for managing problems related front office functionalities and increasing
customer satisfaction as well as loyalty, resolving issues for financials as well as
logistics.
iii) SAP Business One: The third distinctive and popular vendor of ERP is
SAP Business One. It is a business management system that is being designed for
SMEs and has the major objective of automating specific business functionalities in
human resources, operations and financials (SAP Business One. 2019). SAP had
purchased TopManage Financial Systems before branding the system as SAP