MANAGEMENT

Rational-Technique Management in ERP Implementation

Rational-Technique Management in ERP Implementation

Introduction

Business managers and leaders have to scramble in order to maintain competitive edge due to the rapid advancement in technology and the influx of services and goods. In order to meet the global challenges, managers of organization need a system which is capable of operating all their business processes within a single integrated model. The changing demands of the business environment, managers of various organizations have implemented the enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems. This system makes an organization capable to increase their productivity, reduce costs, and streamline their business process through a flow of communication. ERP system provides great opportunities for organizations to have a competitive edge against their competitive in future. However, implementation of the system and aligning it with the existing systems of the organization is not easy.

Several organizations such as Dell, Whirlpool and the Hershey Company also experienced negative impacts due to ERP system implementation. Although ERP system implementation will offer an opportunity to the ABC organization, a food and beverage company, it will need a rational-technical management so that the technology will be implemented with fewer flaws. Implementation of the system may hamper communication across the organization and it will also need another level of discourse amongst the employees that is why critical communication theory will be applied to rationally manage the implementation of this technology.

Discussion

Opportunity in the shape of ERP System

The forces of globalization and virtualization of business environment are causing a profound transformation of enterprises. These are deploying technologies and information systems at an increasing rate to ensure their survival and increase their competitiveness. The organization is designed as a set of subsystems that must be integrated with each other to work together to achieve the ultimate goal of the company (Esteves, 2009, pp. 25-35). For this reason, ERP is represented as a technology of functional integration that allows the company to establish an integrated management. It is then in a second chapter to build a conceptual model illustrating the benefits of this integration with ERP.

The integration generates two types of benefits: benefits that are related to administrative productivity and which are common to most business and operational benefits that are specific to each (Karsak & Ozogul, 2009, pp.660-667):

The benefits of administrative productivity: They mainly arise from the replacement of old specific heterogeneous applications by a single information system. Indeed, the integration provided by the ERP leads to:

The optimization of cost of ownership: By aligning IT applications around the same technology, the installation of the ERP leads to a reduction of application and technical perk. This results in optimizing the cost of maintenance of the information due to the suppression of the interfaces and thereby their operating and system maintenance costs.

From the foregoing, it is noted that the implementation of ERP could increase administrative productivity of the firm. However, it should be mentioned that the adoption of this technology requires a new mindset on the part of users allowing them to ...