IT Infrastructure Management: SWOT and ERP System Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of IT Infrastructure Management, starting with a SWOT analysis of a real estate business, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report then delves into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, explaining their background, characteristics, and applications in various functional areas such as accounting, human resources, manufacturing, and supply chain management. It details the components of an ERP system, including software, transactional databases, and the importance of user training and management. The report also discusses the process of preparing an organization for ERP implementation and concludes by highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of ERP systems, emphasizing their role in enhancing accuracy and efficiency in accounting and business processes. It also includes recommendations on how to address internal issues and external threats, and how to leverage strengths to develop new opportunities. The report emphasizes the importance of proactive planning and policy implementation for long-term success.

Running head: IT INFASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
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Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Executive summary
The aim of this report is to discuss about the SWAT analysis in the part A and then details
descriptions of the Enterprise resource Planning system (ERP). The features or the ERP system
are included in details and the advantages and the disadvantages are also included in the report. It
is concluded that the ERP system is more advanced in terms of making the system more accurate
and faster in response for better management of the accounting system of the organisation. From
the SWOT analysis it is also concluded that the strength, weakness, opportunity and the threat
are also important parameters which should be taken care of in a planned way.

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Table of Contents
Part A...............................................................................................................................................3
Part B...............................................................................................................................................5
Introduction..................................................................................................................................5
Background of ERP.....................................................................................................................5
Characteristics of ERP.................................................................................................................6
Application of ERP system in various functional areas...............................................................6
Components of the ERP system...................................................................................................8
Preparing ERP for the organisation.............................................................................................9
Extension and Data migration....................................................................................................10
Advantages of the ERP system..................................................................................................11
Benefits of ERP..........................................................................................................................11
Disadvantages............................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

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Part A
SWOT Template
Organization: RealEstate.com.au Date: 20/09/2017
Description of current/new ICT service: ICT services regarding the infrastructure in real estate
business.
STRENGTHS
 The valuation of the different
capacities.
 Individual abilities reflected in a
group.
 The available resource is higher in
value.
 The proactiveness is high and also
good resilience.
 The action conventions are well
defined.
WEAKNESSES
 The level of resistance is much higher in this case.
 There are many gaps in the leadership of the organization.
 Staffs having motivational problem
 Individual abilities are not up to the mark.
 Haps in the training and social abilities.
 Lack of organizational policies.
OPPORTUNITIES
 Application of the innovative
technologies in an effective way.
 The competition is diluted.
 The visibility of the strategic real
estate.
 The new possible methods of
communication.
 The strategy related to the
international real estate.
THREATS
 High level of risks is possible.
 The changes of the real estate positioning environment.
 Introduction of several new features in the real estate market.
The introduction of the changes in the potential customers.
 Changes of the eventual legal systems.
Summary and Recommendations:
The SWOT analysis is used in this section to analyze the internal factors of the organization like strengths
and weakness. The external factors like opportunities and threats are discussed also. The key strengths of the
real estate business are the resource and the proactiveness. The resistances and the issues related to the
labors are the main weakness of this business. The main concern in the case of the opportunity is that it can

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make the system more advanced in terms of visibility and strategy making. The threats are mainly the
possible changes in the industry and also the main factors in which the industry faces problem to sustain.
Short Term (Now)
What action would you take now?
To overcome the internal issues and the external threats the business should be more focused in increasing
the ability of the workers by providing them several trainings. The business should also be very proactive in
nature so that it can manage with the possible changes. The organization should also take innovative plans in
order to overcome the possible issues.
Mid Term (next 12 months)
How can you take advantage of strengths and use them to develop new opportunities such as new service
delivery relationships with ICT vendors and products?
The proactiveness and the amount of resource are the key factors in case of the strengths of the business.
The primary objective to make the system more advanced in terms of making it suitable to the customers and
the reliability should also be maintained in order to achieve the fastest growth.
Long Term (next 3 to 5 years)
How would you map out an action plan for the longer term?
In case of longer term the business can use new planning and policies which can be implemented for the
betterment of the organization. The action plan is designed in such a way so that all the challenges can be
overcome in a proactive manner. The planning should be foolproof.

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Part B
Introduction
Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP is one of the most advanced and useful accounting
software which is used worldwide in different organisations. The primary objective of using this
accounting software is to manage the information and details related to the accounting of the
organisation. The ERP system provides an integrated management of the information related to
the accounting and several business processes (Bansal, 2013). The primary function of the ERP
is to collect, store, manage and interpret data from several business functions. It also helps to
keep the track of resources like production capacity and raw materials. It also maintains the flow
of information between the organisations’s managing body and the external stakeholders.
In this report all the features related to the ERP system are given with details. The ERP
system is used by several multinational large organisations and the small organisations have also
started to use the accounting software more increasingly. The ERP is system is completely
different from the traditional accounting software and for that reason it also creates many
disadvantages and issues to the employees who are already used to the conventional accounting
software. All the disadvantages and advantages are also included in this report.
Background of ERP
The ERP system was mainly developed during the decade of nineties. Due to several
sudden changes in the economy and with the introduction of the Euro the ERP system iwas
introduced by several organisations in their accounting system (Bull et al., 2016). The ERP
system then started as the backup of the traditional accounting software and it was also applied in
case of several office uses like customer relationship management. ERP was also introduced in

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the main economic system as the e-business, e-governance and the e-commerce were integrated
later on. With the introduction of the real time response in the ERP system it started to grow
drastically and several organisations throughout the world started to use the ERP system (Chen,
Liang & Hsu, 2015). In recent days ERP is used in customer relationship management, supply
chain management.
Characteristics of ERP
 The main characteristics of the ERP system are given below.
 ERP is an integrated system which provides all the features for managing the accounting
of an organisation from a single platform.
 The ERP system is used for operating in real time. Real time response basically provides
the idea of responding in a faster way and in a more simple way.
 ERP is consisted with a common database which can afford all the applications.
 ERP has a continuous outline of the modules are of feel across nature.
 The main system of the organisation is designed with the integrated system of several
software and the IT based operations.
Application of ERP system in various functional areas
It is used in the accounting management system. The accounting management system
consists several functions like budgeting, cost management, costing and activity based costing.
The ERP system is used in different finance and accounting systems including the cash
management, general ledger, payables and financial consolidation.
The ERP system is successfully implemented in managing the human resources (Chen,
Kim & Yamaguchi, 2014). The human resource department of the organisation is one of the key

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departments which provide the utility of the human skill. Several functions like recruiting,
training, diversity management and retire and pension plans are organised by this department and
the ERP system helps to maintain the whole system more successfully.
ERP is also successfully implemented in the manufacturing process of an organisation by
managing several functions and departments like engineering, work orders, bill of materials,
scheduling, capacity, quality control and the workflow management (Chiu et al., 2014).
Another important fields of application of the ERP system is that the Supply Chain
Management. There are several functions which are included with the product configuration,
purchasing, inventory management, work breakdown structure, claim processing and the
warehousing (Dan, 2014). These functions are done with real time response due to the
implementation of the ERP system.
ERP is also used successfully in the order processing technique. From getting the order
from the customer to selling the product to him there are lots of stages which are done in a
moment in today’s market due to the application of the ERP system (Hoch & Dulebohn, 2013).
The functions like order to cash, credit checking, order entry, pricing and available to promise
and the inventory management, sales commissioning and the sales analysis are being advanced in
terms of real time due to the application of the ERP system.
The customer relationship is one of the key factors for the organisations and the
application of the ERO system is also used to manage the customer relationship.
ERP is also utilised in advancing several data services like the self service interface
which is used for the customers.

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Components of the ERP system
There are several components of the ERP system which make it more advanced in terms
of efficiency and functionality (Hollensen, 2015). The key components of the ERP system are
given below.
Software: The software which is used in the ERP system is popularly known as the
accounting software. The primary requirement of the system is that it manages all the data
related to the investment of the organisation (Hunton, Wright & Wright, 2015). This software is
designed on the basis of the client server technology. In this technology the client and the server
are considered as the different entity. The transaction is done when the client computer sends the
data and the server computer receives the information from the user. In this way the database is
considered to function from the centre of the organisation and the distribution of the resources
are based on the interface between the organisation and the stakeholders.
Transactional database: This refers to the rate of work done through the database and
the transaction is considered as the unit of the work which is done within the database
management system (Jaber et al., 2015). Exchanges in a database situation have two principle
purposes. Firstly to give solid units of work that permit remedy recuperation from
disappointments and keep a database steady even in instances of framework disappointment,
when execution stops totally and numerous operations upon a database stay uncompleted, with
hazy status. Secondly to give segregation between programs getting to a database simultaneously
it is also required.
People: the ERP system is to be utilised in an organisation by the employees and the
most important thing is the learning for the employees (Jeong, 2013). Before the application of

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the ERP system all the employees were used to the conventional and traditional accounting
system and they should be taught about the new features of the ERP system and the basic
concept related to the system.
Management: The management of an organisation is responsible for making all the
works done in a proper way and in case of accounting it is also very important for the
organisation to manage the data related to the organisation (Leon, 2014). That is also applicable
with the ERP system and the ERP system is also consisted with a powerful management feature.
Preparing ERP for the organisation
The challenges could be identified with the framework, business process, foundation,
preparing, or absence of inspiration (Li et al., 2016). It is along these lines pivotal that
associations altogether dissect business forms before they execute ERP programming.
Examination can recognize open doors for process modernization (Niederwieser et al., 2016).
Research shows that danger of business process crisscross is diminished by:
 Linking present events to the organisation's technique
 Breaking down the viability of each procedure
 Understanding of the existing mechanized arrangements
ERP can be executed with the help of associations which are decentralised. It may require
relocating some specialty units before others, postponing execution to work through the vital
changes for every unit, potentially decreasing joining or redoing the framework to address
particular issues (Seethamraju, 2015).

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A possible inconvenience may be the receiving standard procedures can prompt lost
upper hand. While this has happened, misfortunes in one zone are frequently balanced by picks
up in different territories, expanding general upper hand.
Extension and Data migration
Extension is the process of connecting the ERP system with any third party software. The
basic data and the features can be accessed through several interfaces and the features of the
extension can be republishing, collecting the data of several transactions, scheduling and
advanced planning and the transmission in real time and the managing facilities.
The process of moving, cropping and reconstructing the data is from a present ERP
system to different system is called the data migration technique (Shaul, L., & Tauber, 2013). It
has several features like identifying the information and to find out the amount of time in which
the data is to be migrated. It is an important feature as it is designed according to the plans and
leads to success.
Advantages of the ERP system
There are many advantages of using the Enterprise Resource Management system and
among those the primary advantage is that the cost and the time taken by the organisation are
decreased significantly (Tai, Huang & Chuang, 2016). The accuracy and the response speed both
are increased. The transparency of the whole organisation is increased to the employees and as
well as to the stakeholders. The functions which can be improved by the implementation of the
ERP system are given below.
 Inventory optimization and sales forecasting
 Tracking of the orders

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 Matching of the purchase orders
 Sequential record of the data related to the transactions.
Benefits of ERP
 The main purpose of ERP is that it can increase the productivity and quality in terms of
the business aspects.
 ERP creates a equivalence among the different stages of leadership.
 ERP creates a more usable organisation which can easily adjust with the changes in a
better way. It also makes an organisation more organised and adaptable to several work
situations.
 ERP can increase information security. A particular control outline, for example, the
classification given by ERP outlines, provides permission to associate the capacity to all
the more effortlessly assure organisational data which is not bargained.
 ERP provides increased possibilities to cooperation. Data takes many important
significance in present venture. Reports, sound, structures, and video, messages and
documents. ERP provides a cooperative platform for providing representatives possibility
for utilising more energy working together on content in alternative of facing the need to
absorb information by arranging in different shapes in disseminated outlines.
Disadvantages
 The customization of the ERP system can be a real issue.
 Without proper switching the system can have a more amount of expenses and cost.
 The previous employees who are not friendly with the ERP system may face some issues
regarding the interface of the system.

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Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that ERP system is one of the most
important and advanced system in the field of accounting management. IT has lots of advantages
and disadvantages which are implemented in several organisations in order to get a well
arranged, faster and cheap accounting management system. It cancel outs the need to match up
with several changes among the multiple systems. It makes all the information related to the
accounting software more transparent and it also brings more fairness and reliability in the
system. It also provides the platform for coding and naming the products. It provides a
comprehensive enterprise view and it actually helps to access the real time data. This system is
also used in increasing the security of the information and the many8 multiple system can be
achieved by using an single integrated system. The ERP system provides a centralised business
information system which provides the following advantages.
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