BCIS3714 CLASS ACTIVITY: CHAPTER 8 02/04/2024

a. While attending one of the strategic planning sessions in your company, the IT manager
recommends that the systems that handle the company’s vital business operations
should be upgraded to an appropriate enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. You
recognise that some of the employees are unhappy with this suggestion as they prefer
working with the current systems. However, you realise that this might be one of the
best suggestions thus far. Try to persuade the rest of the employees by explaining the
following benefits of an ERP system:
i. Improved access to quality data for operational decision making (2)
ii. Improvement of work processes (2)
iii. Opportunity to upgrade and standardise technology infrastructure (2)
[6]
b. After understanding the benefits of an ERP system, many employees become more
comfortable with the idea of implementing such a system. However, the question of
finding a suitable ERP vendor remains a big endeavour, as many international vendors
(Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc.) supply ERP systems to companies. Your colleagues wish to
know how the company will go about selecting an appropriate vendor. You recognise that
this is a difficult process, but trust that the classification of vendors as Tier I, Tier II and
Tier III ERP vendors (according to the type of customers they target) might help to
simplify the comparison. Explain the difference between these three aforementioned
types of ERP vendors. [6]
c. Implementing an enterprise system is extremely challenging and requires tremendous
amounts of resources, the best IT and business people, and plenty of management
support—particularly in a large organization. You decide to caution the team that even
with all of the right resources deployed, many enterprise system implementations fail.
i. List the major challenges to the successful implementation of an enterprise
system. (5)
ii. Provide several tips to overcome many common causes for failed enterprise
system implementations. (9)
[14]
d. As you continue your discussion, you mention that many enterprise software vendors
are pushing the use of the hosted software model for small and medium- sized
enterprises (SMEs). Since your company is an SME, the hosted software model is worth
considering. Your manager wants to know the advantages and disadvantages of the
hosted software model. You decide to outline them in a table format. [8]