VCA ERP Implementation: A Business Development Case Study

This case study examines the need for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation at Victoria's Clothing Alterations (VCA), a family-run tailoring and alteration business in Australia. The current manual processes, which involve recording customer details and transactions in registers, create inefficiencies, especially during peak seasons. The study analyzes the reasons for ERP implementation, including the need for automation, data storage, and improved customer service. It explores the feasibility of ERP, potential mismatches between business processes and organizational strategy, and associated risks like technical, financial, and management risks. The proposed changes include transitioning to an ERP system to automate processes, store data in the cloud, and train employees. The study also persuades management by highlighting the benefits of ERP in aligning organizational goals, improving data management, and enhancing overall business performance. It discusses the benefits and limitations of cloud-based ERP, emphasizing the need for organizational change to adapt to new technologies and improve efficiency. The case study provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities associated with ERP implementation in a small business context.

Running head: VCA CASE STUDY
ERP IMPLEMENTATION IN VISTORIA’S CLOTHING ALTERATION COMPANY
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Victoria’s Clothing Alteration is a tailoring and Alteration Company in Australia and it is
based on its manual processes but due to the emergence of various problems in the company’s
infrastructure, the owners have decided to deploy an enterprise resource planning system in the
organization. The various factors related to the implementation, its benefits and limitations are
discussed in the below report.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Reason for ERP system implementation in Victoria’s Clothing Alteration................................3
Persuade the management that ERP system is required for VCA...............................................7
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The Victoria’s Clothing Alterations is a store based in Australia which deals with the
customization and alteration of men and women clothing’s and also with the tailoring services of
those clothes. The company is a family run organization by Victoria and has established about 25
years ago however, at present it has almost seven stores situated all across Australia in the main
towns of Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and others. The company runs its entire system in manual
process and enters and regulates the business processes from the customer’s end, receives the
important data for collecting and tailoring their clothes and thus enters those in a register. The
company also provides the pickup and drop off service for their customers and thus all the
important credentials of the company must be noted in the service register in order to deliver
appropriate service to the customers. This process is being maintained in the company from the
very beginning of their operation and is the backbone of their operational structure. However,
with the increase in the number of orders in the peak season, the employees of the company fails
to register all the credentials of the company in the register that is maintained and thus the
company needs an service provider of ERP that will help in the data storage of the company and
also in the automation process of the company Victoria’s Clothing alteration (Ahmad and
Cuenca 2013). The report emphasizes on the need for the deployment of ERP software in the
organization and also the benefits and limitations of the system if implemented in the operational
structure of the comp any Victoria’s Clothing Alterations.
Discussion
Reason for ERP system implementation in Victoria’s Clothing Alteration
Reason for requirement of ERP:

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The current business process in the company VCA is associated totally with a manual
process and this creates a lot of problems during the peak season. The company is associated
with tailoring and alteration services of the men and women clothing’s and suits and it also
provides pickup and drop off service for the clients. The company deals with the various kinds of
credentials that are needed by them like the customer name, customer id and pickup and drop off
time and date and all these data are manually entered in to the register. However, many problems
are faced by the company in the peak season due to which they fail to enter all the credentials
into the register and also fails to count the number of repetitive customers. Thus the company
VCA needs a software for enterprise resource planning which will help in the automation process
of the business and will also help in the storage of the data in any cloud based platforms
(Harwood 2017). The affective ERP system which might be implemented in the organization
Victoria’s Clothing Alteration (VCA) will also help in the retention of the customers and also in
the attraction of the new customers. The company will also be able to enhance their business
process due to easier accessibility of data and will also be able to generate and calculate their
total expenses.
Feasibility analysis of ERP:
The feasibility study for the deployment of the ERP is required as because the employees
of the company and Victoria should be aware of the limitations and benefits of such an ERP
system. The ERP system implementation would initially cost a great amount of investment from
the owners but if the appropriate ERP system is deployed in the organization, it will result in
huge amount of profit for company and also it will enhance the performance of the company and
will also result in employee satisfaction (Schniederjans and Yadav 2013). The company also
requires to maintain the regular entries of the order they get from the customers in a register

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which requires a lot of time and cost and this might be mitigated by the ERP system
implementation in the operational structure of VCA organization.
Issues that may arise due to mismatch in business processes and organizational strategy:
The organizational strategy of business of the organization Victoria’s Clothing Alteration
is based mainly upon the manual process of the current employees in the company and also the
process of registering the data in the registers. However, the entire organizational structure of the
company VCA is based in manual processes and the employees of the company is also based and
trained in the manual process (Matende and Ogao 2013). With the ERP system implemented in
the VCA, the entire database of the organization must be shifted and the employees also must be
given appropriate training in the adopted model for implementation. The mismatch in the current
business process of manual entry with that of the organizational strategy that has to be avoided in
order to implement the ERP system successfully. The issues that may arise due to the mismatch
in the business process and organizational strategy is that there might be an information gap
created between the employees and the customers of the company Victoria’s Clothing Alteration.
The fact that the ERP system’s operation has to be adapted by the company, the employees
might be unable to adapt the system easily and it might cause performance delay in the services
also.
Risks that are associated with BPR and ERP system:
The ERP system implementation in the company VCA is important and thus many risks
are also associated with the ERP implementation and BPR in the operational structure of the
company. The risks that are associated with the process of business process reengineering (BPR)
are technical risk, financial risk and management risk (Alghamdi, Alfarhan and Abdullah 2014).

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The business process reengineering if not adopted in the proper manner in the system of the
company, it can cause significant damage in the organizational infrastructure of the company and
the organization like VCA might also suffer loss in their revenue generation. The risks that might
be associated with ERP implementation are the lack of senior management support, insufficient
training (Zeng and Skibniewski 2013).
Current business processes:
The current business processes associated with the business Victoria’s Clothing
Alterations is that the operations of the company is manually done and thus the company also
depends on its employees in order to control and execute their services. The company manually
enters the credentials of the customers such as order id, customer name, pick up location of the
clothes and their drop off location and time and also the date of pick up and drop off for each and
every order that is placed in the company. The company also uses a register in which each
operation of the company is noted by the employees however, during the peak season, the
employees many times fails to note down every credentials of the customers. The company VCA
has also noticed a significant amount of fall in customer satisfaction due to this reason and the
huge amount of data that is managed by the system is also creating problems for the operational
infrastructure of the company.
Proposed changes in the business process:
The current business operation of the company is thus based on the manual processes as
discussed in the above portion and thus many problems are arising in their business process. The
company VCA must adapt their existing business system into an ERP system and thus it will
help in the automation of the business processes which are done manually in the company (Ha

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and Ahn 2014). The huge amounts of the data that is collected by the company should be stored
in a cloud based structure which will help in the management and accessibility of those data. The
manually operations such as billing and service operation information gathering should be done
by automated processes which will save both time and cost for the organization VCA. The VCA
should also invest in the training of its employees with respect to the newly implemented ERP
system so that the employees can be well aware of the system and perform operations
accordingly. Thus the above changes are required in the company infrastructure in order to
successfully adapt the ERP and also to enhance the overall performance of the company in the
peak seasons as well.
Persuade the management that ERP system is required for VCA
Reasons for the organizational change:
The reasons for the organizational change is mainly due to the fact that the company is
suffering from problems in the peak season due to the heavy workload and also due to the
presence of manual process in the operational structure of the company VCA. The organization
also has a delivery system of the customer’s products and this system needs the automation and
efficiency so that the company can save time and cost. The organizational change in also needed
in terms of employee training and management as because the employees must be trained as per
the new implemented ERP system so that they can efficiently work in the company and also they
can effectively manage the problems and demands of the customers. The company should also
change its organizational structure as because with the deployment of the selected ERP service in
the organization VCA, the company would have the advantage of storing its data in any cloud
based system which will help in the access and storage of important data of the customer’s in the
cloud database. The fact that the employees of the company should adapt with the new

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technologies that are associated with ERP system and these technologies helps in enhancement
of the various activities of the company.
Alignment of organization’s goals along with the ERP:
The Victoria’s Clothing Alteration owner visited a workshop which was on the
advantages of adapting an ERP solution and thus the owner wants the ERP software in her
company as well. The goal of the organization is to record the daily transactions of the company
that are made both using credit cards and also using cash across the various stores across
Australia and also to gather the total number of customers situated in a single branch of the store.
The company also aims to achieve the number of payments received by the company and also
the total revenue collected by the organization. The fact that ERP system deployment will
definitely help the organization in achieving the desired goals that has been set by the officials of
the company and also will thus help in automation of the various departments of the company
(AlSudairi 2013). The act of making entry of the data of the customer’s in a register might cause
loss of important data and due to this the company might also suffer significant loss. The ERP
systems implementation in the company VCA will also minimize the chance of data loss of data
mishandling and thus the entire cash flow of the company will be maintained across all the stores
in Australia. Thus the goals set by the organization Victoria’s Clothing Alterations has been
aligned with that of the ERP system and with the deployment of such a service in the company’s
organizational structure will ultimately benefit the organization’s performance.
Benefits and limitations of cloud based ERP:
The system when implemented in the organization Victoria’s Clothing Alterations
operational structure, will give the organization an opportunity for the data backup and storage

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and also there are certain advantages and disadvantages of the cloud based ERP system which
will affect the operations of the company Victoria’s Clothing Alteration (Teittinen, Pellinen and
Järvenpää 2013). The benefits of cloud based ERP system when implemented in the company
are –
 The cloud based system will create a transparent interface in all the processes and
also through the various departments of the company.
 The data storing in the cloud based ERP will also give the employees of the
organization, an opportunity in data sharing all across the various stores and parts
of the company (Duan, Faker, Fesak and Stuart 2013).
 The ERP systems when implemented in the organization will also give data
security to the important credentials that are stored in the company’s database.
 The order tracking and revenue tracking in the company VCA can also be done
using the ERP system that will be implemented.
However, there are certain limitations to the company’s organizational structure on the
adaptation of the ERP system by the VCA organization –
 The main problem with the ERP system implementation is the act of migrating
the data from the existing company database to the cloud based ERP.
 The ERP softwares also needs significant amount of costing during the initial
implementation phases and also the testing and configuration of these ERP
systems are cost effective (Tambovceva and Tambovceva 2013).
 The current employees of the company Victoria’s Clothing Alterations are
trained in the manual process that is followed by the VCA and when the ERP

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system will be implemented in the organization, all the employees of the
company must be trained according to the new operation and interface of the
ERP system.
 Another limitation of the system is also that many ERP service providers may
require additional indirect cost in terms of new IT infrastructure and up gradation
of networks (Elmonem, Nasr and Geith 2016).
Organizational commitment from management:
The organizational commitment within the organization Victoria’s Clothing Alteration is
also a vital aspect in terms of enhancement of performance of the organization. The management
of the store VCA, must maintain a commitment between themselves and the other employees of
the organization in order to successfully deploy the ERP system in the existing framework of the
company. The fact that the new ERP system has a different kind of organizational structure than
the existing system, the company employees should also maintain a commitment towards the
organization as well as themselves so that the integrity in the organization Victoria’s Clothing
Alteration remains maintained.
Conclusion
The company Victoria’s Clothing Alteration deals with the various tailoring and
alteration services in clothing of men and women and has several stores all across Australia and
it is currently having several problems due to its existing infrastructure. The various problems
have been highlighted in the above discussion and it can be concluded from the above discussion
that the company VCA must implement an ERP system in their existing infrastructure in order to
enhance their performance and also to mitigate the problems that arise during the peak season

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due to heavy workload. The benefits and limitation of the VCA store on the adaptation of the
ERP system is also discussed in the above discussion. The company offers free pickup and drop
off services for their customers and thus the deployment of a proper ERP system in the
company’s infrastructure will help in the automation of these processes. The huge amount of
data that is maintained by the company will also be shifted into the cloud based database of the
ERP system which will provide them easy accessibility of the data by all the stores across
Australia. Thus it is recommended that the company VCA must adapt an ERP in order to
mitigate their problems.