Introduction
Inventory management, ERP software will come in handy as the business needs to coordinate the way it receives goods and tidies away the goods. By using ERP software, the business will ensure that there is always enough space for new items and that all items in total are accounted for. Talking about the flow of goods, we also mean the management of the costs of procurement, the storage, and the sale of goods, and the shipment of the same goods. In her studies (Renee, 2007) conclude that the business can settle down on the most suitable time to order to refill the inventory. The software can set controls the will determine the suitable level to reorder. This will ensure that the business has enough stock to meet the market demand. In his studies (King, 2005) assumes that the software also enables the company to keep an eye on and make a follow up on the numerous locations and the organizations altogether. It can track the specific cost of each batch.
Payroll Systems
Apart from the goods, the organization’s human resources can manage efficiently, its payroll system, how training of new employees is done, time for each employee and the attendance, allocation of duties, and even the benefits that each employee is entitled to. The system has been criticized for lacking contact with its customers but an organization can indeed monitor its sales and marketing, the commissions that come with the sales and marketing, the customer support and response, and finally, the customer call center support and its effectiveness. The organization can monitor the performance of each unit and manage the activities running within.
Outsourcing
In their book (Monk & Wagner, 2009) state that, organizations should hire external consultants who have the professional and technical know-how on the implementation of such systems. This way it will be more cost-effective. The duration of implementation will depend on the size of the organization, the number of units, how much customization will be done, the extent of the effect of the change, and the readiness of the customer to own the system. The system can be implemented in phases which will also depend on the amount of customization to be done. After making all these considerations, then it’s wise to identify the data that needs to be relocated into the system. This should be followed by establishing the time for data relocation, the data templates should be generated, solidifying the tools for data relocation, settling on the relocation-related setup, and finally settling on how to store the data.
Case Study
A perfect example of an organization that is using the ERP system with internet-based communications is Kenya Airways. By the time the article of my reference went to press (2007), the system was still in its phase implementations but I believe by now it is full-blown. The company was implementing an ERP system from Oracle and was doing so in phases to replace the company’s transactional systems. Renee Conradie of Emerging Media Communications reported on facts from
Kevin Kinyanjui, the Information Systems Director for Kenya Airways. Kevin said that customization was only done in the accounting station because of the accounting that takes place at the point of sales on an individual coupon basis for tickets. He also asserted that the company needed to automate most of its manual processes such as reporting and adhering to approval policies. Kevin is happy there are no sentiments to the system meaning that policies are correctly adhered to. “The system ensures that sign-off is received from the correct person without fail” asserts Kevin.
Reference List
Renee, C. (2007) ERP takes flight at Kenya Airways. Nairobi, Emerging Media Communications.
King. W., (2005) Ensuring ERP implementation success. Nairobi: IS. Publishers.
Monk, E. & Wagner, B. (2009) Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning. Boston, Cengage Learning.