...ECRM 2007: 6th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies Using PEST Analysis as a Tool for Refining and Focusing Contexts for Information Systems Research Guo Chao Alex Peng, Miguel Baptista Nunes Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Regent Court, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK lip05gcp@sheffield.ac.uk, j.m.nunes@sheffield.ac.uk Abstract It is common for inexperienced researchers and research students to aim at investigating very wide contexts such as countries (e.g. China, India, UK), regions (e.g. the Arab Countries) or even continents (e.g. Africa). Such studies in Information Systems (IS) are not only unrealistic and potentially unfeasible, but may result in findings that are neither significant nor meaningful. Research supervisors often face difficulties in explaining and resolving these common pitfalls in research proposals. This paper proposes the use of Political, Economic, Social and Technological (PEST, also often referred to as STEP) analysis as a tool to identify narrower contexts and focus research questions around feasible and meaningful regional contexts. It illustrates this process with the results of an analysis carried out as part of an ongoing PhD research project. The project aims to investigate the barriers and risks associated with the post-implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in Chinese companies. PEST analysis was used to define an appropriate region in China (i.e. Guangdong)...
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...Factors influencing ERP implementation in manufacturing industries in India Introduction The global financial crisis provided an opportunity to many small and medium scale Indian enterprises to expand their business operations to other countries by acquiring businesses overseas. The crisis made many such companies change their way of conducting business by adopting sophisticated business practices. Such an initiative has taken them a step closer to their larger business conglomerates in terms of enhanced competitiveness and efficiencies. By implementing enterprise wide information technology (IT) solutions, Indian micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMEs) are giving themselves a chance to emerge as big players. This technology enhancement boosts their overall brand image amongst their export partners and increases their chance to grow bigger in the domestic market as well. ERP systems (a very popular form of enterprise-wide IT solution) are designed to achieve integration and streamlining of internal processes by providing a suite of software modules that cover all the functional areas of a business. However, increasingly we hear of the failure of ERP implementations (Davenport, 1998). The authors have studied MSME organizations in the manufacturing sector and have reported failure at ERP implementation. As a result, there has been expanded research focusing on the implementation process. Objective The purpose...
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...“ERP – THE CHANGES TRENDS SALES AND DISTRIBUTION” Prof. S.L Gupta* and Ms Richa sharma** * Professor, Birla Institute of Technology(Deemed University), Noida Campus, Noida (U.P). ** Research Scholar, Singhania University, Rajasthan. ABSTRACT TO keep pace with rapid changes in the business world, companies need an integrated and flexible enterprise system that supports all aspects of their business with state-of-the-art functionality. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system helps companies to run their businesses in an effective and efficient manner by providing integrated and consistent information flow. It makes the task of keeping track of all the transactions so much easier. A retail ERP system allows automatic recording of the transactions in real-time environment. They have become indispensable tools to survive and increase profitability in race of running the large organization. SAP ERP system is tightly integrated with the Sales and Distribution module. This integration enables the mapping and supply of single-site or multi-site organizations. Developing precise logistics planning for just-in-time deliveries, this system can also generate replenishment orders by using defined warehouse requirements. The ERP Information Systems facilitates faster and better management decisions by providing crucial information in a timely manner. The research focuses on to gain in general understanding of...
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...ERP IN MANUFACTURING SECTOR Group :6 Anubhav Chaturvedi (15) Anirudh Mishra (36) Amol Singh (57) Rohit Patil (60) INTRODUCTION ERP systems have traditionally been used by capital-intensive industries such as manufacturing, Services etc. Manufacturing firms are facing new challenges and in order to stay competitive many manufacturing operations require to be regularly updated with the Information Technology solutions. The manufacturing sector is one of the main economic activities in most of the nations. The most important aspect to characterize IT adoption is the industry and its specific characteristics rather than the country the firms belong to. Different industries have different operating characteristics and environments, and the factors related to ERP use may differ accordingly. Given the complexity of manufacturing firms, we then decide which aspects of a firm influence the use of technological innovations. Most of the manufacturing companies rely on ERP software to manage the entire range of business activities from CRM, manufacturing inventory and processes, accounting software, manufacturing planning, purchasing, quality, and more. For implementing ERP in any manufacturing industry the research objectives revolve around the following parameters(Mainly cost and quality measurement) * To identify whether there is significant difference in performance measures like cost and quality in industries with well defined IT system and industries with not such well...
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...In order to keep advantage in the competitive environment, organisations are seeking methods to improve their distinctive competencies. Business information systems (BIS) play a significant role in developing the competitive merits among other competitors. Through the contribution on the five competitive forces described by Porter (1980), information systems could assist an organization to achieve the strategic advantage (Greasley, Bocij, & Hickie, 2008). BIS is a complex process of converting data to information which facilitates the planning, operational activities and decision making (Hardcastle, 2008). People, computers, processes and communication interact in BIS, and thus it is more than technology. Llett (2006) claimed that the value of the system should be led by business need rather than technology. Facing the challenges from business change, managers are expecting the BIS could satisfy the desired purposes such as increasing revenue and reducing cost. As one of the BIS, enterprise resource planning (ERP) attracts the managers’ attention by standardized firm-wide transactions and central data management. By replacing the complex interfaces between the different systems, ERP provides a ‘standardized, cross- functional transaction automation’ and enables the organisation to collect data once through the initial transaction, data storage and process (Hendricks, Singhal, & Stratman, 2007, p. 68). However, whether these benefits could be realised is determined by the...
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...ERP for Retail Sector Presented By: Astha Priyamvada What is ERP? Enterprise Resource Planning systems or the ERP systems refer to the software packages that integrate all the data and the related processes of an organization into a unified Information System (IS). An ERP system uses a central database that holds all the data relating to the various system modules. In order to achieve a seamless integration, an ERP system uses multiple hardware and software components. ERP packages are heavily used by larger retail chains. Designed to facilitate the administration and optimization of internal business processes across an enterprise, ERP packages have become the competitive tool for most large retail organizations. An ERP software uses a single database that allows the different departments to communicate with each other through information sharing. ERP systems comprise of different modules such as order entry, purchase, sales, finances, inventory management, DRP (Distribution Resource Planning), human resources and budgeting software. The components are designed to work effortlessly with the rest of the system and provide a consistent user interface throughout the system. ERP software packages have an enterprise wide reach that offers cross-functional capabilities to the organization. The different functional departments involved in the operations or inventory processes are integrated into a single system. An ERP package takes care of the various business...
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...ERP system in Xinghe Electronic Commerce Company IT 500 Information Technology Professor Robert Dachowski March 23, 2014 Yue Wang, Nan Wu, Cancan Ge, Yi Ma Table of Contents Part I. Yue Wang ………………………………………………………………3-13 Part II. Nan Wu ………………………………………………………………14-20 Part III. Cancan Ge ………………………………………………………….21-24 Part IV. Yi Ma ………………………………………………………………25-31 Reference ……………………………………………………………………32 Part I Background IT tech, especially the widespread of using, has made human beings entered a brand new age which is a knowledge economic timing. Under this big timing, the business environment time has been completely changed for companies. For example, traditional business model has been replaced by E-commerce model. With an abundant of consumer’s demand, revolution of tech, short period of product life cycle and sharp competition in marketing, companies should follow this 3C guideline which is consumer, challenge and change. Also, company should match consumer’s customize demand so that the company can accelerate adapt the development of marketing’s changing. Under the new external environment, e-commerce companies need to adjust their development strategies, restructuring their business processes and organizations, also need to use modern information technology, enterprise information management. In this context, electricity providers need to use integrated enterprise management information system to provide real-time, accurate...
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... Table of Contents Introduction 2 Small and Medium sized Enterprises 2 SMEs in India 3 SMEs and ERP 3 Barriers to implementation of ERP systems in SME’s 4 Strategies used 5 Saas Technology 5 Advantages of SaaS for SMEs 6 SaaS Vendors 7 Case Studies 7 SAP for 10 Users Company- Heckler & Koch GB 7 SaaS ERP for Oxford Bookstore 9 References 10 Introduction Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) can mostly be considered as responsible for driving the competition prevailing in economic sectors. The definition and standards of a SME is different for different countries. These enterprises play an important role in setting the market trends and with this a need of using Enterprise Resources and Planning systems (ERP) for optimizing and automating their traditional business processes has aroused. But often ERP systems development, implementation and maintenance are very costly which makes it difficult for SMEs to use them. As a solution to these problems ERP system vendors now offer all the facilities of ERP system to the company without actually installing the hardware and software on the client side and this facility is referred to as Saas technology. This paper discusses SMEs of India, barriers of implementing ERP in SMEs, strategies used by ERP vendors and brief description of SaaS technology. Small and Medium sized Enterprises SME sector has been identified as an accelerator for economic growth across the globe. SMEs are generally classified...
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...Lantek presents the new version of its ERP package, Lantek Expert III Lantek has presented the new version of its business management software package, Lantek Expert III, an integrated ERP solution aimed at companies operating in the metal and sheet metal, profile and tube processing sector. Lantek, a multinational leader in CAD/CAM software applications, has more than a decade’s experience in developing business management solutions, an area that it is currently booming and in which it is extending its international expansion strategy, in order to establish itself as one of the main world suppliers of ERP solutions for the sheet metal market. In this regard, and in order to offer technologically advanced tools that adapt to users’ requirements, Lantek has optimised its ERP package, of which it is currently marketing version 28. The main unique benefit of the package is its complete integration with the rest of Lantek’s CAD/CAM solutions. “The perfect integration of our CAD/CAM+ERP solutions is one of our competitive advantages, in fact, it is the added value we offer our customers, for whom it is fundamental and of key importance to have solutions that complement each other and help to speed up their processes, making them more competitive”, pointed out Zuriñe Sáenz, Lantek’s ERP Division Product Manager, who added that “as it is easy to use and flexible it enables full adaptation to the customer’s business processes, and never the other way around”. So, Lantek Expert III...
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...SAP is a software company whose main product is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. SAP was founded in 1972 in Walldorf, Germany under the name System Analysis and Program Development. (SAP) SAP has more than 54,000 employees with sales and development locations in more than 50 countries. Their revenue in 2010 was € 12.5 billion and based on market capitalization, SAP is the third largest independent software manufacturer. SAP has over 176,000 customers in over 120 countries and markets and distributes its products and services primarily through local subsidiaries. (SAP) ERP software is designed to model and automate many of the basic processes of a company, from finance to the shop floor, with the goal of integrating information across the company and eliminating complex, expensive links between computers systems that were never meant to talk to each other. Most large companies have adopted some form of ERP system and a survey of IT executives in the U.S. showed that ERP was the second most important key category of investment. (Anderson et al., 118) The five most well-known ERP software companies are SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Baan, and JD Edwards. (Hirt and Swanson, 247) SAP has customers in nearly every industry. In the energy sector, one of SAP’s largest customers is Siemens Power Corporation (SPC). SPC is a globally operating manufacturer of nuclear and fossil fuel power generation systems. SPC was originally founded as Exxon Nuclear in 1969 and was later bought...
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...Business Strategy and the Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2009) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bse.657 Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting on the Internet J. Emil Morhardt* Roberts Environmental Center, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA ABSTRACT All material related to environmental and social performance on the corporate internet sites of 454 Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 1000 companies in 25 industrial sectors was analyzed using the Pacific Sustainability Index. Maximum scores for individual sectors were 20–75 percent of the total possible, highest in the largest and most environmentally sensitive sectors and ranging generally linearly, as shown by plotting score versus rank, down to nearly zero in every sector. None of the variation in score is explained by corporate revenue in the Asian and European firms in this sample (revenues greater than about $9 billion), but there is a very weak correlation between score and revenue for American firms of this size, and a stronger one when Fortune 1000 companies (all American) with revenues smaller than this are included, suggesting that, as corporate size reaches a certain threshold, sustainability reporting becomes independent of it. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 18 November 2008; revised 26 April 2009; accepted 1 June 2009 Keywords: corporate environmental reporting; corporate environmental policy; corporate...
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...Resources Planning (ERP). Perhaps we can still survive without technology, but without ERP, a company may fail to remain competitive as they fail to respond quickly to new practices and procedures. Indeed, a company who quest for competitive advantage in this era of intense competition where business entities compete for innovation, expanding customer’s expectation and internationalization of markets, a company regardless of their size must have a reliable ERP to support them. ERP has proven to be an effective tool for competitive advantage as ERP help to delivery products of the highest quality on time, as quickly as possible and at the best price. Davenport (1998, p.121) suggests that “ERP appear to be a dream comes true as these software promise the seamless integration of the information flowing through a company. Markus et al. (2000) defines ERP as commercial software package that enable the integration of transaction oriented data and business process throughout an organization. The purpose of this paper is to discuss facts about ERP, its benefits and the critical success factors in ERP implementation especially for small manufacturing companies, which is in this paper, will sometime refer to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The remainder of this paper is organises as follows. In Section 2, facts about ERP software is presents. The ERP and its relations to small manufacturing company are discusses in Section 3. Section 4 outlines the benefits of ERP, mainly for SMEs...
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...Estonia MRP SYSTEMS RESEARCH Eduard Shevtchenko Tallinn Technical University Institute of Machinery. Ehitajate tee 5, EE0026 Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: eduard.shevtshenko@ttu.ee ABSTRACT Paper will give the analysis of theoretical MRP base and “Monitor” and “Scala” software efficiency analysis in the solution of “resource planning management” problems. The aim is to find out what are the original features of every solution on the way to profit maximisation at manufacturing enterprise. Paper will show what are the results of software implementation at the manufacturing enterprise compared to the period of work without software. Estimation of the efficiency of the “Scala” and “Monitor” software starts from the preparation of manufacturing process stage, and stretched up to financial results achieved. In this paper results achieved throw planning activities will be compared with real results. Analyses of manufacturing problems solutions throw software installed: using of work centre loading simulation possibilities for the optimisation of present and future manufacturing capacity; pre-calculation for future products; rating of subcontractors; EOQ calculation; delivery performance analysis; optimisation of inventory; supply chain management. Theoretical MRP base analysis gives the estimation of final profit sensitivity to different input data. This work will be practically approved on the manufacturing enterprises, under the pressure of real limits of enterprise, with analyses...
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...Short Communications ERP FOR BANKING INDUSTRY Subodh Kesharwani Enterprise Resource Planning application software is appropriate for organizations in all economic sectors including banking industry. This wide applicability is largely possible as ERP offers considerable flexibility to customize the software by tailoring it to the individual organizational needs. In this short review paper, it is attempted to enumerate potential and prospects of ERP system in the banking industry which is generally done after its system integration with other IT and web-enabled banking systems. Downloaded From IP - 115.248.73.67 on dated 30-Nov-2010 Members Copy, Not for Commercial Sale www.IndianJournals.com INTRODUCTION Banking broadly covers deposits, lending services and money transmission. Banks play a crucial role in mobilizing and distributing a nation’s wealth to ensure a healthy growing economy. Banks normally have large branch networks, many of them comprising over a thousand branches. A bank customer can an individual or an organization with a current or similar account with the bank (Lipscombe & Pond, 2005). ERP systems in business are typically used with an internal perspective and less with external perspective. However, in banks the applications are more with external perspective as a bank deals with money that is transferred from person to person, from business to business and from country to country. A national banking system consists of thousands of individual...
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...11FN-106 Sourabh Bhave 11FN-107 Microsoft | ERP Implementation in SMEs | Introduction In the post-liberalization and opening up of the economy business era, ease in international trade barriers, economic liberalization, globalization, privatization, disinvestments and deregulations have thrown several challenges to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the fast-developing economies like India. Compressed product development cycles, cut throat domestic and global competition, economic downturns, rapidly changing customer demands and volatile financial markets have increased the pressure on SMEs to come up with effective and competitive capabilities to survive and succeed. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is often considered as one of the solutions for their survival (Rao, 2000). Up to mid-1990s, SMEs sector in India had operated under much-protected economic regime characterized by limited competition and highly regulated business environment. This business atmosphere had resulted in limited focus on process efficiencies, centralized control structures, highly formalized business settings and lack of professional business practices (Ranganathan and Kannabiran, 2004). However, following the economic liberalization and opening up of the economy to foreign multi-national companies, Indian SMEs have to adopt modern business practices and strategies, which in turn can provide them a cutting edge over its competitors. ERP software integrates the various functional spheres...
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