Tool Selection and Implementation Plan

Part 1: Proposal Outline

Introduction

• Description of the study area

Literature review

• Summary of critical findings

Rationale

• Research Objectives and purpose
• Problem statement

Implementation

Recommendation and Conclusions

 

            Needs Assessment Draft

            Introduction

The nature of the globalized modern enterprise business landscape necessitates active players in the internationalization of activities. Previously, companies used to prepare their competition based on their competitive aims mainly price, quality, and convenience. However, the market today mainly calls for both the provision of quality and price value in addition to increased flexibility and approachability thus requiring firms to be strategic. For these companies to achieve continuity and consistency in performance most companies have decentralized their activities through the process of outsourcing. This has created numerous challenges for the companies to acquired integrated and collective supply chain. Large companies normally implement enterprise information systems to acquire extensive access to increased productivity. Enterprise systems are essential given that they create opportunities for business to lower the production cost through the increased use of technology. The systems additionally provide features that boost areas such as teamwork, increased responsiveness, quality improvement and enhanced staffs relationship and efficiency. Thus, this report will focus on the systems implementation while following Toyota Company as the case study to improve the integration of the supply chain and improve on the quality and price aspect.

Core Business Functional Areas

According to Snedaker & Rima (2014) within the business landscape operations are all coordinated to gain efficiency. The main reason regard to the separation of business activities leads to expertise which results in efficiency and effectiveness of the business. To start with human resource has the role of supervising the performance of the staffs. This entails controlling and planning for activities to ensure that all the processes are directed towards the achievement of the set objectives. In other words, the department is entitled to hiring, recruiting as well as managing individuals operations and responsiveness. On the other hand, marketing entails everything that the firm does to establish the needs of the consumers and designing the needed services and products to meet all these demands. The marketing purpose also incorporates the promotion of services and items to establish how each of them is to be delivered and creates pricing approach to gain the largest part of the market for sustaining competitive (Snedaker & Rima, 2014). In today’s technology-driven enterprise surrounding, marketing has the responsibility for creating and overseeing internet-based activities. Since social networking is one of the leading platforms for marketing then the activities have to be managed fully.

Accounting and finance ensure that every operation runs as set by the management. In that accountants are responsible for the provision of the needed information in making choices towards the allocation of resources (Olson & Kesharwani, 2009). In that this functional area is finally accountable for the accurate representation of financial relations to other parties. In this context, the accounting area creates financial reports that help enterprises in evaluating the capability of the firm. Even though the finance area is closely related with the accounting one, it involves planning for acquiring and managing funds. Financial decisions, therefore, determine the healthy steadiness of their enterprise. Supply Chain management is a necessity in every industry that involves the coordination of activities while adhering to the need for strategic advantage (Olson & Kesharwani, 2009). In that, the manufacturing activities, as well as productions all, rely on how well the company manages its supplies.

For the business functional areas are reliant on major enterprise systems. Enterprise systems assimilate several applications, processes, and formats. In so doing an enterprise system permits firms to incorporate the processes such as accounting and sales as information is shared across different business tasks (Olson & Kesharwani, 2009). Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer relationship management (CRM) are the leading examples of the necessary systems. CRM systems are important in addressing the necessity to increase sales, productivity thus increasing the ability of the firm to retain and attract more customers while increasing sales. It is through the functions of CRM, like the management of sales that a firm is able to gain more about consumers’ needs and purchasing behavior and integrates the details with market-related findings that lead to increased quality and sales increase. In that, the function is useful in maintaining close relationships amid the clients and the company thus ensuring that their needs are understood and addressed as needed. Of equal significance, CRM supports both physical and virtual communication and industrializes sales processes to enhance workers’ productivity (Parthasarathy, 2010). The main function is to work towards meeting the needs of the employees. SCM coordinates activities that seek to efficiency thus offering a competitive advantage through a strategic focus. The flow of information allows the company to develop a product, source materials, transportation, and production. ERP system also incorporates the application of software similar to the way that the company incorporates the processes of business pertaining to human resources, supply management, finance, and procurement. The integration of these processes seeks to achieve quality, increase sales and enhance the productivity of every employee (Olson & Kesharwani, 2009). ERP systems not only support diverse operations and management responsibilities such as designing paths for efficiency which allows their application in diverse industries such as in retailing, banking, manufacturing and so on.

Purpose and Objectives

The main purpose of this report is to develop an implementation plan for Enterprise information systems with respect to Toyota Company.

Objectives:

1. To determine the effect of EIS implementation on the company’s productivity
2. To determine the benefits of SCM, CRM, and ERP on Toyota’s responsiveness to the market needs, efficiency, sales, and performance.

Current Situation

Toyota Motor Company is a global company which originates from Japan. The company is involved in the production of motor vehicles across the globe (Snoeck, 2014). Enterprise information system involves the collection, storing and processing information with regards to production. The systems are important in making critical decisions to enhance production, cut cost, and develop competitive advantage and adopting strategic planning for the company. The company is one of the leading automobile brands across the globe. The company depends on using the information system to acquire information about the needs of the market thus improving the satisfaction of the consumers. However, the intensification of competition in the market requires the company to adopt more strategic choices. In this context, there is a need to upgrade the company’s information systems for sustainable advantage (Snoeck, 2014). Thus, the purpose of implementing the system is to improve the productivity of the company to increase its market share and productivity in terms of price and quality.

Project Scope

The project is being carried out to develop a strategic implementation of EIS for Toyota Company to improve productivity, efficiency and increase its competitiveness. The project team will, therefore, focus on uncovering the underlying operations issues to establish the most suitable approach for sustainable advantage. The report will thus focus on the implementation of CRM, ERP, and SCM since they are the main drivers of enterprise functional areas.

 

 

 

 

Second Part

Tool Selection and Implementation Plan

Toyota Company operates in a rather competitive automobile environment within the global scope. The automobile market is demanding for more innovative vehicles in terms of performance, designs, and functionality. In this context, it implies that the company must struggle to meet all the needs to maintain the customers while attracting new ones. The company is very innovative and develops performing products that meet the needs of its target. However, this is not strategic because all the other competitors are doing the exact same thing and to gain a larger part of the market then it means that each has to differentiate its operations.

Toyota Company utilizes an integration of cost leadership and broad differentiation approaches (Thompson, 2017). In that, the company focuses on the reduction of its operating expenses leading to the coast advantage of offering affordable products. It is through differentiation that it develops unique products leading for its competing benefits. Thus, in order for the company to guard its organizational strategy, the implementation of systems will be useful in creating a strategic positioning for the company (Thompson, 2017). In that the effective management of supplies, it means that the company will increase its productivity and efficiency. With efficiency, the general operational spending for the company is lower which allows the company to focus on productivity. In addition, CRM and ERP are needed for efficiency that enables the company to focus on performing better and increased productivity at all the time over the existing competitors.

The implementation of the systems does not, however, imply that the process will be easy and successful. Most companies have failed for the inaccurate implementation and inability to apply the aspects of the systems and align them with the needs of the company. First, the implementation cost is extremely high and for a company that is not financially stable, it means that investing too much in the systems will affect productivity as a whole (Snoeck, 2014). Therefore, the issue can best be mitigated by the slow adaptation of the systems. In that, the systems cannot be taken at once since the employees will need training and additional expenses. Human resource expertise is also needed as the systems will need more employees but the company can offer training to some of the existing employees to cut down the expenses.

The main assumptions with respect to this project are that it will automatically lead to efficiency, reduced cost, increased productivity and enhanced quality. The assumption is not justified because once the company has implemented the systems it will take time for the results to become noticeable. In that, the quality aspect might be evident but cost reduction will be achieved much later on the ground that the expenses of the systems are high which will affect the general cost (Parthasarathy, 2010). The assumption that at first, the approach will result in losses is correct given that once the systems are implemented it means that the profitability will be lower. The company follows the cost leadership method and the development level of the product is intense which will lead to losses. The assumption that the adoption of the strategy will lead to competitive advantages is also justified because the company will be able to work efficiently towards the achievement of the set goals.

There are a number of risks that are associated with the implementation of the information systems. First, cost one of the leading risks. The company has been focusing on the reduction of operational expenses to support the cost leadership approach. The implementation of the plan is likely to intensify the associated costs as a whole given that much resources are needed. The other risk is employee turnover since change is something that affects an employee’s motivation which will automatically affect their productivity and performance in the market for the company.

Some of the needed resources for the implementation of the systems include funding, staffing hardware and software (Cruz-Cunha & Varajao, 2011). In that, the whole process requires funds that are needed in supporting the entire process. Also since operating the systems requires expertise the process will need professional staffs. Both hardware and software resources are the infrastructures necessary for the development of the systems.

Comparison of two systems & cost/benefit analysis

Oracle and Microsoft are the two selected vendors for enterprise application software. Both companies occupy leading positions in the software market. However, Oracle is more established in the market based on its ability to mitigate existing challenges in the market. In this case, I believe that Microsoft offers the best software solution for the company. In that, the cost of its products is lower and will serve the same purpose. This will support the organizational approach for the company to lower its reduction expense.

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Item	One Time	Recurring
Hardware	$150,000	$100,000
Software	$100,000	$100,000
Systems and Programming	$200,000	$50,000
Inventory	$600,000	$80,000
Forecasting	$200,000	$50,000
Project team	$200,000	$60,000
Training	$700,000	$50,000
Contingency	$400,000	$50,000
Total	$2,850,000	$540,000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Olson, D. L., & Kesharwani, S. (2009). Enterprise Information Systems. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company.Cruz-Cunha, M. M., & Varajao, J. (2011). Enterprise information systems design, implementation and management: Organizational applications. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference.

Snedaker, S., & Rima, C. (2014). Business continuity and disaster recovery planning for IT professionals. Waltham, MA: Syngress.

Snoeck, M. (2014). Enterprise Information Systems Engineering: The MERODE Approach.

Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Springer

Thompson, A. (2017). Toyota’s Generic Strategy & Intensive Growth Strategies. Panmore           Institute. Retrieved from: http://panmore.com/toyota-generic-strategy-intensive-growth-       strategies

 

Parthasarathy, S. (2010). Enterprise information systems and implementing IT infrastructures: Challenges and issues. Hershey, Pa: IGI Global.