6. Where are ERP systems heading in the future? Do you agree or disagree with the trends discussed in the chapter? Explain.

 
The ERP market has matured to a point where heightened competition has brought declining sales. As a result, ERP vendors are expanding their functionality to add-value and support new organizational needs from compliance management, customer support, global supply chain, and emerging technology platforms such as open source software and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs). Open source addresses a key concern in this instance. Often, ERP vendors pitch to smaller enterprises packaged applications that they can run as is, requiring little or no IT investment. It's a logical pitch in environments with scarce technology resources.
Another trend among big vendors has been to expand their software market for small to medium size business. The saturation of the demand in big business and the lucrative nature of the small and mid sized business market has led vendors like SAP and Oracle to enter the small to mid size business market, too.
According to an article by Roberto Michel, senior contributing editor of Manufacturing Business Technology, the market for ERP software—the integrated enterprise management suites that companies rely on for everything from accounting to manufacturing management—is clipping along nicely. Some analysts peg market growth as high as 10 percent; but despite this healthy outlook, it's a space that has undergone major transformation in the last several years.
Most recently, the biggest vendors devised new middleware platforms aimed at supporting service-oriented architecture (SOA) in which functionality could be more flexibly delivered as services. Analysts say ERP vendors are adjusting to this SOA era, but maintain that factors such as ease of integration and industry functionality still weigh heavily in user purchasing decisions.

7. Why is it necessary for the project triangle to be balanced at all times for project success? Discuss the implications of an unbalanced project triangle.

 
An unbalanced triangle leads to cost overruns based on scope creep and resource constraints.  Project scope must be balanced with time and resource constraints otherwise the implications are project failure, cost overruns and scope creep.
 

ROLLS-ROYCE CASE QUESTIONS

 
RR did a good job in planning user and SME involvement and got early help of external consultants to make sure their implementation was successful. 
 

1. What do you think of RR’s ERP Implementation project? Did they select the right implementation strategy?
    

Rolls-Royce selected an implementation strategy that fit the organization.  The IT team was experienced and augmented with EDS and SAP consultants.  In addition the phased rollout allowed the business to adapt to the new system and address new functionality on a later phase.  Conversion was a priority and is often the critical path.  Lastly, the Change Management team provided a training strategy that allowed for users to be trained in depth.
 

2. Discuss the Critical Success Factors of RR’s implementation strategy and the role of SMEs in the project.

 
RR had knowledgeable and cross-functional SMEs on the project that were able to overcome a major issue in most implementations, that is, SMEs inability to think about functions across the organization.

 

3. What advice can you give to RR’s technical team on their approach of migrating the legacy system to the SAP software?

 
Conversion is usually the critical path with data cleansing taking the longest.  Clean data is the key to the overall success of an implementation.  In addition, minimizing the number of interfaces and retiring legacy systems should be the focus of the technical teams.