Woolworths' ERP System: Benefits, Risks, and Business Requirements

This report examines the benefits of implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system within the Woolworths Group, an Australian retail giant. It details how ERP systems facilitate the management of daily business activities, enhance data integrity by centralizing transactional data, and contribute to effective decision-making. The report covers Woolworths' business processes and requirements, system requirements for ERP implementation, and the selection of appropriate software and vendors. It also discusses strategies for improving business efficiency through technology, evaluates the level of efficiency achieved, identifies potential security risks and data breaches associated with ERP systems, and provides guidelines for risk mitigation. Woolworths' focus on customer satisfaction and operational excellence through ERP is highlighted, with emphasis on online shopping, system accessibility, reliability, performance, security, and accuracy. The report concludes by underscoring the importance of selecting the right software and vendors to align with the company's objectives and functional requirements.

ERP System: Woolworths

BENEFITS OF ERP 1
Executive summary
ERP system is kind of software which is been used by almost every company in the current
market condition, the system makes the working of the company very easy and fast. It helps
the management of the company in managing daily activities of the business. This report
includes benefits of the ERP system, the role of ERP system in business process and in
finding the requirement of business. Woolworths Group is been selected, to describe ERP
System requirement, Selection of software and vendor, use of technologies to improve the
business efficiency, an efficiency of technology implemented, potential risk and data breach
and guidelines on risk mitigation.

BENEFITS OF ERP 2
Contents
Executive summary...............................................................................................................................1
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Company Overview...............................................................................................................................2
Business Process....................................................................................................................................3
Business Requirements..........................................................................................................................5
System Requirements............................................................................................................................6
Software and Vendor Selection.............................................................................................................8
Three Ways of improving the efficiency of the Business....................................................................10
The level of efficiency of the technology implementation...................................................................12
Potential security risk and data breach.................................................................................................13
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................14
References...........................................................................................................................................15

BENEFITS OF ERP 3
Introduction
The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is system software which enables various
organisations to manage their day to day business activities, such as manufacturing, project
management, accounting and procurement. The ERP system brings together the business
process and enables a flow of data among various departments of the organisation. By
collecting shared transactional data from multiple sources eliminate duplication of data and
provide data integrity with single source of truth. ERP system allows centralisation of data
for the user accessing the system. The system contributes in effective decision making for the
company and provides competitive advantage over others. It allows companies to bring
changes in the level of performance. The system provides cross- functional business for an
organisation (Nwankpa, 2015). Beside advantages there are few disadvantages attached to
ERP system, hackers find easy to hack the system privacy due to out-dated version of the
system. ERP systems are prone to security vulnerabilities like DDOS Attacks (Kilic, Zaim
and Delen, 2015). This report contains the uses of ERP for an organisation and systematic
approach that is used by various companies to enhance their business procedure efficiently
and effectively. This report contains information regarding ERP system use by Woolworths
to manage its business process.
Company Overview
Woolworths Group Ltd, formerly known as Woolworths Limited it is an Australian company,
which was established by Percy Christmas, Cecil Scott Waine, Ernest Williams, George
Creed and Stanley Chatterton in 1924. It is a second largest company in Australia in terms of
revenue. The company has retails interest throughout New Zealand and Australia. The
company segment includes Australian petrol and food, New Zealand supermarket, BIGW,

BENEFITS OF ERP 4
Endeavour Drinks Group and hotels. Woolworths Group is a largest takeaway retailer of
Australia, the largest gaming poker machine operator and hotels in Australia. In 2008 the
company was awarded as a 19th largest retailer in the world (Woolworths group, 2018).
Business Process
Business process is a series of steps perform by a group to achieve organisational goals and
objectives. A business process can be automated or manual. This process is based on rules
and policies which are to follow by the organisation strictly (Hammer, 2015). The
systematically planed business process is an asset for an organisation. As time changes there
is change in business process is noticed in current scenario business process is playing very
important role in the organisation. If the business process of any company is well planned and
goal orientated, will create a value for business economically and provide an advantage over
its competitors (Berg, and Kilambi, 2014).
There are three types of business Processes:
Source: (Pnm, 2017).
1. Primary Process: The primary process is closely related to the value chain and the
core value of the business. Primary process is a process, with the help of which the
Primary Process
Support Process
Management Process

BENEFITS OF ERP 5
company can reach out its service and products to its clients. Primary process is very
important and crucial because it is fundamental process plus it is core of the complete
process, as it directly links to the clients. The main aim of this process is to add value
at every level of business (Gedda, 2010).
2. Support Process: Support process is not directly related to the clients but it creates a
favourable environment that can support or smoothen the functioning of primary
process. This process does not generate value directly to the customers. Support
process is important for the organisation as it include, accounting process,
management process and human resource process, these processes facilitate the
working of an organisation (Rouse, 2018).
3. Management Process: As support process, the management process also not adds
value to the clients. Management process is more related to analysing and monitoring
of the business activities. This process deals in bring new and innovative changes in
an organisation. Management process main aim is achieving and designing intangible
and tangible targets as it is goal oriented process. Management process helps in
creating the brand value by standing out and providing its clients a value of intangible
terms (Bailey, Seymour and Belle, 2017).
The Woolworths business process solid foundation is there hard work and honesty in
resolute. They have created down to earth culture and family friendly values. The main aspect
of the business is to focus on making the lives of their customer easy, simple and better. They
always take care of their team members, customers, manufactures and producers. As a result
they serve almost around 28 million customers every week and have a happy family of more
than 190000 team members (Reuters, 2018).

BENEFITS OF ERP 6
Business Requirements
Business requirements are the critical activity of an organisation which is performed to meet
the objectives of organisation. The main goal of Woolworths is Customers first across all
their brands. For that goal Woolworths wants to achieve five priorities as its business
requirement these are:
1. Building a customer and store led culture and team,
2. Generating sustainable sales momentum in food,
3. Evolving Drinks business to provide more convenience and value to customers,
4. Empowering portfolio business to pursue strategies to deliver shareholders value, and
5. Becoming a lean retailer through end to end process and systems excellence
(Woolworths group, 2018).
The change will start by building a great retail team which listen to its team members,
suppliers and customers. With the use of voice of customer programme across brands, store
teams and support office team the company receive daily feedback from the customers. This
means that the team of company can focus every day to improve companies offer and
shopping experience for the customers. The Australian Food team help in achieving the
requirement of business (Reuters, 2018).

BENEFITS OF ERP 7
Source: (Woolworths group, 2018).
System Requirements
For determine the system requirement staff members share the documents which consists the
set of statements. The statement specifies the requirements of external and internal
stakeholders of the company. The main aim of the system requirement is to collect the quires
from the customers and evaluate the requirements. The system requirement mainly includes
software and hardware devices to build an ERP system. The ERP system is all about business
process transformation with modern ERP technology. So the ERP requirement should focus
on defining the future state of business processes and evaluating the ERP solution against the
future state business process model (Lethbridge and Laganiere, 2015).
The ERP system make devices able to save data automatically for the user which will provide
easy retrieval of information in future whenever required. The system will be reliable and
will help the user in perform better.
 Online Shopping: The online shopping option on Woolworths site enables its
customers to buy products online. There are various products which are listed on the
company’s online shopping site, that will provide benefits to the customers, the
customers can buy and select the choice of product from the variety of products. The
company provide home delivery service for the goods which are selected by the
buyer. The company site also offers the option of making payment through debit and
credit cards or cash on delivery which ever option suites to the customers. In this ERP
system enable the customers to know each and every detail of the sites and make their
works easy (Delayne, 2018).
 Log In/Registration: To log-in into the ERP system or on site the customer first has
to register themselves, for registration the customer need to provide few personal

BENEFITS OF ERP 8
details such as name, e-mail address, contact details, communication address, city
name and few more. After providing the details the customers can log-in into the
online shopping site of the company and can start shopping. And if the customer is
already registered on the site they can directly log-in into a system (Delayne, 2018).
 Accessibility: The system can be access by users who all are register on it. The
system provides a user manual which contain steps to use the system and enable better
and proper use of system (Cox, 2017).
 Reliability: The system provides an option of auto update and auto detection of issues
which will help the system to get update automatically which make the work of the
user easy. This will reduce the cost of maintenance and due to that the company can
gain the reliability of the user.
 Performance: The ERP system helps in improving the performance of the employees
of Woolworths. The system will enable the management to make effective decision.
The system maintains the data from the starting and while making the new strategies
and policies the previous data is been use by the management. The system is capable
of tracking market trends and that will provide an advantage to the Woolworths over
its competitors (Cox, 2017).
 Security: Security is a most important factor of ERP system. The System of
Woolworths provides a full security to its customers. The ERP system of the company
is fully safe and the personal data of customers are secure with the company.
 Accuracy: The company can fully rely on the ERP system because it data is 100%
Accurate. The system provides a full efficiency in billing, payment and maintains
records of the company. While using the software the data is automatically got saved
in the system and that data can be used in future to make new policies or strategies.
(Delayne, 2018).

BENEFITS OF ERP 9
Software and Vendor Selection
The system software is became a basic required for the almost every business as the working
of the companies are spreading worldwide. The system software is different for every
business, it depends on the type and need of the company. Software system increases the
work efficiency of the management and staff which will really helpful in maintaining
business process. It is very important for the company to select the right software and
purchase the software from a well-known and authentic Vender (Dutta, Gwebu and Wang,
2017).
Selection of the software includes few steps:
1. Objectives and goals of company: Before selecting the software it is important for
the company to identify its objectives and goals, because the gaols and objectives of
companies are different from each other, so while selecting the software it is
important to find objectives and goals. Goals can be classified:
 Growth Goals: In this the company will focus on the growth before selecting
the software. The management will think that the motive of purchasing the
software is growth or not.
 Efficiency goal: This type of software is purchase by the company when their
motive is to increase the efficiency of the business.
 Speed to market goals: This type of software is installed by the company
when they want to bring products in the market fast by satisfying all
regulatory requirements and gain market share (Babic and Peric, 2014).
2. Functional software Requirement: Every company has few common functions like
marketing, accounting but in terms of function the company need to think about the

BENEFITS OF ERP 10
details of specific industry. The need of particular industry and the company will lead
the features of the functions required (Schiff, 2013).
3. Underlying technology and future scalability: There is been noticed many times
that underlying technology of ERP system was not a primary consideration for the
business. The software dominates when the company chose its system. This is
because the cost of updating or changing ERP system is much higher than the price of
software and in current scenario technology becomes absolutes very fast. Choosing a
system which is based on new technology will give a long lasting life and it will be a
better investment of the business (Smith, 2018).
4. Budget and resource: There is a big variation in prices is been noticed by the
company in the market. The highest priced system software is five times higher than
the lowest cost. Sometimes the reason of high cost is advanced functionality includes
in the system software to make it more efficient. If the company want some additional
or advance functions in their system they have to pay the more prices for the ERP
solution. But it is not always right that more expensive is better, the company need to
think about their priorities and functionalities if it not required the advance feature
then they should buy the less expensive system software (Smith, 2018).
5. Trusted team: To implement any new ERP system in the business function the
company will need to think that the person or employees who are going to manage the
project or system are trust worthy or not because the system contain many internal
and external details of the company and of the customers (Vaidyanathan and Fox,
2017).
After considering these steps the company can reach to the conclusion and select the software
which is more appropriate for the functioning of the business. And after selecting the
software the issue of selecting a right and reasonable vendor will arise. It is very important to

BENEFITS OF ERP 11
select a right vendor for the software, vendor should be a person or company, whose software
is good in functionality, effective and efficient. And whenever is assistance is required the
help desk always ready to help and solve the quires (Aburub, 2015).
Three Ways of improving the efficiency of the Business
The ERP software provides many benefits to the company. It deals with the day today
challenges of the business and executes the business strategies. The system software ensures
that the business of the company will continue to prosper and grow. The ERP system is used
by the companies in every part of the world to enhance the efficiency of the business and
become more productive in less time. The system can helps the Woolworths in marketing a
new product in the market, creating a new business model, enhance a decision making, and
maintain a good relationship with the customers. Because of these reasons the Woolworths
give more priority to the ERP system and keeps on updating and employing new functions in
the system (Lall and Teyarachakul, 2011). As it is not possible for the employees to maintain
the huge amount of data manually on daily basis as the size of company is big, hence the
primary and secondary data of the company is also be in huge numbers. To manage these
types of records the company need ERP system.
Woolworths is utilising ERP system to improve the business efficiency:
1. Fosters Communication and Problem Solving: A proper Communication between
the team members is necessary for the business. There should be no space for
miscommunication is to be left, due to which the company will suffer a loss.
Miscommunication may lead to complexity in the working of the business and reduce
the productivity of the business. To solve this type of problem Woolworths introduce
the system of video conferencing. As the company is working mainly in Australia and
New Zealand, and other part of world the chances of miscommunication or