HI5019: ERP Implementation Case Study for Gracious Industries Analysis

This case study analyzes the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for Gracious Industries, a company dealing in electronic parts. The report begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of ERP in modern business, particularly for automating operations and reducing errors. It identifies key business processes where ERP systems can be implemented, including finance and accounting, sales, and supply chain management, along with the crucial aspect of controlling business risks. The study then delves into the common features of ERP systems, such as integration, automation, customer relationship management, accounting, and tracking. A detailed comparison of three ERP vendors is provided, with a conclusion that Oracle NetSuite is best suited for Gracious Industries due to its data-driven decision-making capabilities. The report further explores the introduction, key business processes, control risks, ERP features, and vendor selection in detail. It examines the finance and accounting system, sales system, and supply chain system to illustrate how ERP can streamline operations. The study also addresses the control risks associated with manual processes and emphasizes the importance of real-time information. It discusses the features and functionalities of ERP systems including integration, automation, customer relationship management, accounting, and tracking and visibility. Finally, the report provides a vendor selection comparing and contrasting the ERP vendors and concludes with the selection of the ERP system.

STRATEGIC INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
FOR
BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE

1
Executive Summary
Resource planning is very essential aspect of the modern day business. This makes highly
critical for the management to make sure that they have a software system that can automate
the operations and reduce the errors that is caused by human interventions. This report
highlights the key business processes in which ERP system can be implemented. These
include finance and accounting system, sales system, supply chain system and control risks.
Every ERP system has some of the common features this includes Integration, automation,
customer relationship management, Accounting and Tracking and Visibility. In this report
there is also illustration and description about the three vendors that provides ERP solution.
All these ERP systems are capable of dealing with the functionalities that are different from
others and at the same time have features that are totally different from others. It was also
found that Oracle NetSuite is best of all for the Gracious industries as the decision making
skill of the ERP system is based on the data they have. Oracle gives the data-driven approach
to the making of decisions.
Content

2
s
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Key business processes..........................................................................................................................2
Control risks..........................................................................................................................................3
ERP features and functionality..............................................................................................................4
Three ERP vendors................................................................................................................................6
Vendor Selection...................................................................................................................................8
Compare and contrast........................................................................................................................8
The selection of ERP system.............................................................................................................9
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................10
References...........................................................................................................................................10

3
Introduction
An enterprise resource planning system is becoming the most important part of the businesses
as the implementation of software helps in running the process of business effectively. This
report includes the implementation of ERP systems in gracious industries as they are facing
the issue in business and lost some crucial information from their system. The various
components will be discussed including the requirement of business processes like sales,
finance, and accounting. The major ways of controlling the risks of the business will be
discussed. The various requirements of the company will be discussed which includes the
ERP features and the functionalities for achieving the objectives and minimizing the control
risks. The analysis of vendors will be done and their information will be provided along with
their products. For the implementation of ERP system the functions and features of ERP
software will be analyzed and select the one which is effective for the company.
Key business processes
Enterprise resource planning is used by the organization for managing and integrating the
necessary parts of the business. ERP system helps in integrating all the processes of the
company and helps in running the business with a single system. Gracious industries deals in
the electronic parts and every company includes the business processes as it includes the set
of activities for performing the tasks and representing it in a unique way for the coordination
of knowledge, information, and work of the organization. it is necessary for the management
to pay attention to the business processes for executing the business and for the strategic
advantage. Gracious Industries includes the business processes for running the business to
supply the electronics parts to stores of hardware and supermarket (Magal and Word, 2011).
For the competitive advantages, company requires automating the working process and the
main business processes are the sales system, Finance and accounting system, and supply
chain system. it helps in planning the scheduling the business process.
Finance and accounting system-
In business, accounting and finance systems are required to manage the costs and money of
the company. It helps in managing the salaries, accounts receivables, suppliers' information,

4
etc. financial systems help in managing the main process of the business as it helps in making
effective financial decisions. In helps the business in bookkeeping and recording the day to
day transactions which help in reducing the work pressure from the employees (Bradford and
Florin, 2003).
Sales system- managing sales is crucial for the company and traditional methods of recording
sales lead to missing information and also less efficient for the business in making further
reports. In order to manage the sales of the business, an effective system is required to
analyze the demand and supply of the electronic parts in the market. The demand and supply
of the products must be maintained in the business. it helps in tracking the experience of
customers and provide the relevant information to the customer for meeting the demand of
requirement of products (Umble, et al., 2013). In ERP system, the various activities related to
customers can be done effectively which includes the expenses, invoicing, shipping,
competitor’s analysis, and forecasting can be done automatically.
Supply chain system- This process of business includes the management of the flow of
goods and services. The activities of supply chain help in maximizing the customer's value
and gaining a competitive advantage in the market. In order to manage the business
processes, the implementation of management information system, transaction processing
system and decision support system help the company in running the business with
competitive advantages (Altamony, et al., 2016). It functions of purchasing, scheduling of
suppliers, configuration, warehousing, and other activities can be performed effectively. in
this the management of task distribution and order processing are also involved.
Control risks
The various risks are involved in the process of the business. When the work and activities
are performed manually it involves the risk and delays the process. Real data is not available
and responses also get delayed in manual work. The major control risks are involved which
impacts the profitability of the company. Gracious industries have lost the huge information
from their business and they are not able to set the competitive prices pf the parts. It involves
the data analytics issue and it requires to manage the processes of the business in an effective
manner. Errors and delays help in creating major issues for business. control risks are
essential for improving the business process and performance of the company. it is essential
to control the risks of human error and loss of the information (Dechow and Mouritsen,

5
2005). Various risks in business can be controlled by the management in the business
process. Real-time information must be available in the business for improving the
effectiveness of the business process (Fui-Hoon, et al., 2011). Systems in the business help in
providing the competitive advantage of innovation, efficiency in operations and information
quality.
ERP features and functionality
It is essential for the company to consider the function and features of the ERP system for
achieving the objectives and minimizing the control risks of the business. ERP system
includes the various features which help the business in managing their processes effectively.
Integration
All the business process can be operated and managed by a single ERP system and does not
require the integration of information from different system for making the strategic decisions
of the company. ERP system includes the feature of integrating the information of different
business units. It automatically integrates the information of all the business processes for
further processing. It provides fully integrated information to the management for monitoring
and conducting the majority of the tasks. Integration of information helps in increasing the
processes quality and less time consuming (Al-Mashari, et al., 2013). All the information
must be integrated into the system correctly as that will help in making the process error-free
and provide the correct results. It helps in providing the various opportunities to the company
for improving in the market and expanding the business. past and current information in the
systems helps in predicting future sales, the analysis of the report can be done effectively
when the integrated report is available (Zhong, and Rohde, 2014).
Automation
The automation feature of ERP system will help in performing the various tasks of
accounting, invoicing, reporting and order enter automatically. Automation features will help
the company in reducing the manual work of employees and other work can be done by
employees which include manual work. Automation of processes helps in reducing human
errors and can help in completing the work on time. Transferring of data and information can
be done correctly without any error (Madanhire and Mbohwa, 2016). ERP system also helps
the business in reporting and analyzing the information effectively. it will help in analyzing

6
the performance or the business and final reports can be generated easily at the time of
requirement and can access the information in future also.
Customer relationship management
It helps in maintaining customer relationship management. It is crucial for gracious industries
to maintain the relationship with customers and they deal with huge number of customers.
ERP system helps in centralizing the information of customers and allows to quickly access
the information easily. It also helps when the invoices are generated for customers and
system will generate the billing information and addresses during the shipment processes
(LaBarre, 2019). The issues of the customers can be resolved on time and required
information and data can be provided to customers.
Accounting
The main function of the business is financial management. ERP system includes the strong
tools of accounting. It helps the business in managing the accounts receivable, payables,
management of fixed assets, risk and tax management. Gracious industries can make the
efficient use of ERP system for managing the revenue and sales of the business. the
accounting functions can be automated with the ERP system including the processing of a
payment, sales analysis, management of expenses and debtors aging reports can be generated
easily. It helps in improving the processing time and accuracy in data and information and
reduces the burden of employees. it helps in improving the performance of the company and
provide customer satisfaction with providing the correct information regarding their
payments and invoicing (Gupta and Kohli, 2006).
Tracking and Visibility
Every business requires the monitoring of information. ERP system helps in providing
comprehensive visibility for evaluating the performance of the organization. In gracious
industries it will be helpful in supply chain visibility. The activities of the business can be
monitored for achieving the objectives of the company. it helps in tracking the information
which is required for further processing of the operations. It helps in understanding and
foresees the various issues of the business which are related to the delays and stock outages
(Zhong, and Rohde, 2014).

7
ERP system helps the users in tracking the information it can be related to the sales,
productivity of staff, statistics reports and information related to management for decision
making. Multiple tools are involved in ERP system for tracking the information. It also sets
the alarms for various events and keeping the record of the important activities and
requirements of stock and material when the level of electronic parts decreases. In CRM
tools, the sales and demand can be tracked, in HR module of ERP system the performance
and productivity of the employees are measures.
Three ERP vendors
There are various ERP vendors that are part of the industry which are providing excellent
systems for managing the operations within the firm. Since Resource planning is critical for
any company hence they will demand for the ERP software that are highly sustainable. In the
time when the skill management is a challenge for the companies, it is critical that firm
applies the best ERP systems to manage the performance. Selection of the vendors depends
on the type of product sold by the vendors and the software requirement that is actually
within the firm. The three ERP vendors that are selected here are:
Oracle
NetSuite is an ERP system that is offered by the Oracle Company. This is a complete,
measurable cloud ERP solution targeted at high-developing, middle sized business and large
enterprises. This system enables the firm to automate front and back office processes
including financial management, fixed assets, billing, revenue management and inventory
management. This software gives the overall organisation from the top management to the
lowest level staff a customised solution to do their work and report for their role.
This software is a leader in the industry as it is the smartly performing combination among
the financial management operations and built-in business intelligence due to this company is
able to make data-driven decisions. The platform is also able to improve in terms of
accelerating order-to-cash processes with a robust and well-connected suite for order
management (Finances Online, 2019). This ERP system is able to manage all the inbound and
outbound logistics while making reduction in the total cost of ownership. This system is also
able to make the firm’s procure-to-pay procedures highly accurate. This suite also comes with
flexible pricing scheme which helps in minimising the software investments. This ERP
vendor is a developer hosted, cloud-based ERP platforms which is offered as a software-as-a-

8
service and it is the world’s most utilised cloud ERP solution. The product of this company
supports the operations in the departments such as service department, Human resource and
finance department which helps in increasing the productivity of the employees and hence
they overall organisation. This technology is also helpful in reducing the cost that is spent on
the outsourcing application hosting and removing the cost of investment on the server
hardware (Bahssas, AlBar and Hoque, 2015). This also enables effective customers and
supplier’s collaboration and hence improving the relationship between the partners.
SAP SE
It is a German based company that excels in the enterprise resource planning software. SAP
ERP incorporates the key business function of the firm. The newest version of ERP is SAP
ERP 6.0 which was launched in the year 2006. This company sells its products that provides
them benefits in the operational areas such as logistics management, sales and distribution,
production planning, quality management etc., financials areas such as management
accounting, financial supply chain management, financial accounting etc., Human capital
management such as Payroll, e-recruiting and training etc., corporate services such as Real-
estate management, Travel management environment, health and safety (Hejazi, Halpin and
Biggs, 2014). This is highly effective software that is capable of dealing with the operational
management flaws and it is also effective in managing the skills related to the employees as
they can easily use this software to improve the overall productivity of the employees. The
five implementation phases are project preparation, business blueprint, realisation, final
preparation and golive support. This system gives higher attention to the system integration to
safeguard their SAP ERP implementation from their failure. Since there is system integration
hence data flow is appropriately done among various SAP ERP components. This not only
streamlines business processes but also removes or minimises redundant efforts of data entry.
SAGE 300
Third highly used software is Sage ERP which is a product of the company SAGE 300. This
is generally used by the small and medium sized enterprises. In 2004, this software was
developed. SAGE 300 is a Windows based range of ERP software that runs on the SQL of
Microsoft. It has Windows environment and has an option of being hosted by sage (Sage,
2013). It is one of the famous companies that are able to have better products for the
companies that are facing problems related to the skill. The module feature include

9
 Multi-Company and Global Operations Management
 KPI dashboards
 Customer Relationship Management
 US & Canadian Payroll
 Intelligence Reporting
 Construction and Real Estate
 Return Material Authorization
 Accounts Payable
 Accounts Receivable
 Alerts and Alerts Server
 (Sales) Order Entry
 Fixed Asset Management
 General Ledger
 Intercompany Transactions
 Project and Job Costing
 Transaction Analysis and Optional Field Creator (Hakeemuddin, 2018).
 Inventory Control
 Purchase Orders
Vendor Selection
It is critical that vendors are selected appropriately and as per the requirements of the firm.
For this features and functionalities of the ERP software needs to be compared and checked
that which provides higher values to the company.
Compare and contrast
SAP ERP is utilised for different operations and provides expert solution in the areas of
business management. ERP system have implemented for the integration of different
services. Oracle database might be highly reliable which may deal with large database sizes
and heavy software overloads. It is not easier to work with complex piece of software
(Haddara, 2014). Moreover Oracle layout with RDBMS is effective in managing the
complexity. Oracle database is portable and it had to run on the exclusive running gadget
systems like identical documentation.

10
SAP is having higher advantage in terms of the smoother business enterprise stage
operations. It is lesser complex when compared with other company’s software packages in
terms of global integration and interaction which results in different cultures. Moreover it
provides and offers real-time statistics to the firm (Bahssas, AlBar and Hoque, 2015). This
software package also an asset in terms of the fact that it has capability to operate in real-time
operations management and statistics which is better than other ERP software provided by
other companies.
SAGE 300 has a range of software packages for different departments and it provides cost-
effective solution for the company. It is also better than others in terms of the skill
requirements as it is not very much complex to understand and handle. It is basically
designed for the small scale organisations which do not have very large organisational
infrastructure. It has scalability that cannot be matched by other ERP software (Rana, 2019).
It is highly customisable and highly simple to use. This ERP system also provides flexibility
in the work environment and also provides disaster recovery solution with increased
collaboration which makes it better than others.
The selection of ERP system
Among the three ERP software packages that can be used by the firm the best ERP software
package that can be used by the company is the Oracle Netsuite as it has features to manage
all the type of operations. It also gives many advantages to the firm in the management of its
business function. This ERP system has a best resource utilisation features which allows them
to gain advantages in the long-term and the cost involved is only single time cost that is used
at the time of implementation. Multiple operations with high integration of data based system
where most of the decisions are made through the help of data system that is available within
the organisation. Since Netsuite ERP system is also capable of effectively utilised in the case
of change management, monitoring of operations and skill development hence it helps in
improving the overall effectiveness of the operations. This is also a better operations
management system because it has a decision making skill that is data-driven. The product of
the company that is offered by them is green product. This firm can also enhance the quality
of different processes utilising waste control and other kinds of cost-effective business
processes. This will enhance the overall productivity of the company along with the quality
that they offer.

11
Conclusion
From the above based report it can be concluded that ERP system is highly essential for the
management of operations in any firm. Finance and accounting system, Sales system, Supply
chain system and Control risks are some of the key business process that can be dealt with the
help of ERP system. ERP system has features and functions such as Integration, automation,
customer relationship management, Accounting and Tracking and Visibility. Oracle, Sage
300 and SAP SE are three vendors that provide ERP solutions. Among the products that are
delivered by these companies Netsuite by Oracle is the best ERP system. This is because of
the fact that it provides complete solution to the operational challenges and at the same time it
is also easier for the companies to maintain it.

12
References
Al-Mashari, M., Al-Mudimigh, A. and Zairi, M., 2013. Enterprise resource planning: A
taxonomy of critical factors. European journal of operational research, 146(2), pp.352-364.
Altamony, H., Al-Salti, Z., Gharaibeh, A. and Elyas, T., 2016. The relationship between
change management strategy and successful enterprise resource planning (ERP)
implementations: A theoretical perspective. International Journal of Business Management
and Economic Research, 7(4), pp.690-703.
Bahssas, D.M., AlBar, A.M. and Hoque, M.R., 2015. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
systems: design, trends and deployment. The International Technology Management
Review, 5(2), pp.72-81.
Bradford, M. and Florin, J., 2003. Examining the role of innovation diffusion factors on the
implementation success of enterprise resource planning systems. International journal of
accounting information systems, 4(3), pp.205-225.
Dechow, N. and Mouritsen, J., 2005. Enterprise resource planning systems, management
control and the quest for integration. Accounting, organizations and society, 30(7-8), pp.691-
733.
Finances Online, 2019. Oracle NetSuite. [Online] Available at:
https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/netsuite-erp-software/. [Accessed on 25th September
2019]
Fui-Hoon Nah, F., Lee-Shang Lau, J. and Kuang, J., 2011. Critical factors for successful
implementation of enterprise systems. Business process management journal, 7(3), pp.285-
296.
Gupta, M. and Kohli, A., 2006. Enterprise resource planning systems and its implications for
operations function. Technovation, 26(5-6), pp.687-696.
Haddara, M., 2014. ERP selection: the SMART way. Procedia Technology, 16, pp.394-403.
Hakeemuddin, 2018. What are the features and advantages of Sage 300 ERP software?.
[Online] Available at: https://www.saifeecomputers.com/features-advantages-sage-300-erp-
software/. [Accessed on 25th September 2019]

13
Hejazi, S.S., Halpin, A.L. and Biggs, W.D., 2014, February. Using SAP ERP technology to
integrate the undergraduate business curriculum. In Developments in Business Simulation and
Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference (Vol. 30).
LaBarre, Olivia, 2019. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). [Online]
Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/erp.asp
[Accessed 25 September 2019].
Madanhire, I. and Mbohwa, C., 2016. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) in improving
operational efficiency: Case study. Procedia CIRP, 40, pp.225-229.
Magal, S.R. and Word, J., 2011. Integrated business processes with ERP systems. Wiley
Publishing.
Rana, R. 2019. Why Should You Host Your Sage 100 ERP System on Cloud?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.acecloudhosting.com/blog/why-host-sage-100-erp-on-cloud/.
[Accessed on 25th September 2019]
Sage, C.R.M., 2013. Sage CRM for Sage 300 ERP. Sage, 866, pp.996-7243.
Shehab, E.M., Sharp, M.W., Supramaniam, L. and Spedding, T.A., 2004. Enterprise resource
planning: An integrative review. Business process management journal, 10(4), pp.359-386.
Umble, E.J., Haft, R.R. and Umble, M.M., 2013. Enterprise resource planning:
Implementation procedures and critical success factors. European journal of operational
research, 146(2), pp.241-257.
Zhong, F. and Rohde, M. E., 2014. Cloud computing and ERP: a framework of promises and
challenges. New Zealand, ACIS.