2440043710 – Ricky Chen

LA 16 – Accounting and Information System

1. On an ERP Implementation project it's a good practice to use the Vanilla

Implementation strategy. Please explain the benefits of this strategy?
There are plenty of benefits by implementing the ERP using the Vanilla
implementation strategy, such as:
- Simple to implement and easier to use.
Vanilla ERP has the best simplicity compared to the comprehensive strategy and
the middle-of-the-road. Therefore, in the implementation of the Vanilla ERP there
are less things that are being customized. However, the ERP itself will be
designed by following the best example available.
- Cheaper Cost of Implementation
Vanilla ERP implementation strategy are less costly compared to comprehensive
and middle-of-the-road implementation strategy. The Vanilla implementation will
call for a standardization of the organization as a whole, the standardization will
result in the whole company branches run under the same system. The company
which has a standardize system will experiencing better performance in sending
and retrieving data which will reduce the unneeded hardware and software. This is
also why the Vanilla ERP implementation strategies are most suitable for the
businesses which have straight-forward business practices.
- Easier Maintenance and Manage
Due to the ERP simpler designs, new employees and free-lancers are able to learn
and understand the system faster and fixing an issue won’t be taking too much
time. The business which has a lot of branches are able to create a same standard.
- Smaller risk.
In implementing new technology such as ERP, there are a great risk of failure, but
then it is a high reward high risk situation. This is a lot risky especially when the
organization has no experiences in implementing an ERP in the past. However, in
Vanilla implementation, the risk can be reduced. This will be a lot safer for the
smaller organization with no experience in ERP implementation.

2. What is your solution if there is a department due to it's uniques busines process
required a major modification to one of the ERP modules? Please explain the
consequences of your solution.
- In the ERP implementation, Plain Vanilla ERP id quite helpful at first. However,
the ERP is too generic to suits unique business processes. This is why many
businesses choose to customize or modify the system to meet their business needs.
(also known as chocolate)
- The consequences of the modification to a current version of the ERP is risky and
crucial. A single error in the coding can disrupt the ERP and cause the process to
fail as a whole. In fact, whenever there are problems or bugs with a modified ERP
system, it is often that the modified code was the source of the issue. This is why
every changes need to be analyze and validate to make sure that the modified code
doesn’t conflicts with the current release. This is the reason why major
modification of the ERP module must be carried out carefully.
- The consequences not only affecting the software system but also the business
process. The failure of assessing the new changes can result in a catastrophic
failure for the organization. For example, the company Avon fail to assess their
2440043710 – Ricky Chen
LA 16 – Accounting and Information System

implementation, even though it was told that their ERP are “working as designed”.
The organization will need to focus in addressing the employees with the needed
insights on how to utilize the ERP after the major changes and also recheck the
business process to see if the business process conflicted with the new ERP.