Adopting an ERP system to the enterprise’s business process constitutes the process-driven approach

by Adesola Adams

An ERP implementation entails installing the software, moving financial data over to the new system, configuring users and processes, and training users on the software.
The three approaches to implementing ERP systems are IT-driven, process-driven, and hybrid. The first approach represents the adaptation of the enterprise to ERP functionalities (Chiplunkaret al., 2003).

In contrast, adopting an ERP system to the enterprise’s business process constitutes the process-driven approach (Van Der Aalst and Weijters, 2004). The hybrid approach is a mixture of the two. However, research has shown that the IT-driven approach is better for allowing the enterprise to take all possible advantages from an ERP system. Researchers and ERP vendors argue that adopting these best practices makes the implementation of the enterprise systems less costly, risky, and improves the enterprise’s processes. However, the application of an ERP system without any adjustments to the enterprise’s business processes will result in a risky and costly implementation (Panayiotouet al., 2015).

ERP implementation is the method of examining current business practices, strategic planning, streamlining operating procedures, installing and testing software, cleansing, and migrating data, managing change, training users, going live, and maintaining support. It is not a one-time occurrence, but rather a continuous process or life cycle. Management in an IT-driven implementation refers to the business engineering that focuses on the enterprise structure, readiness, and business processes that fit the enterprise system capabilities.

The case article explains conceptual models such as RMs, which play an essential role in all phases of the enterprise system lifecycle and provide key benefits to process design in terms of cost, risk, time, and modeling quality. Furthermore, these RMs offer positive effects on enterprise systems and business engineering. RMs present content in domains such as ERP, which has the business process, function, system organizational, and data.

References

Chiplunkar, C., Deshmukh, S. and Chattopadhyay, R. (2003), “Application of principles of event-related open systems to business process reengineering ”, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Vol. 45No. 3, pp. 347-374

Van Der Aalst, W.M. and Weijters, A. (2004),“Process mining: a research agenda”, Computers in Industry, Vol. 53 No. 3, pp. 231-244

Panayiotou, N.A., Gayialis, S.P., Evangelopoulos, N.P., Katimertzoglou, P.K. and Al-Mashari, M. (2015),“A business process modeling-enabled requirements engineering framework for ERP implementation”, Business Process Management Journal, p. 21

This article emphasizes the importance of Enterprise resource planning (ERP) to an organization and seeks to describe the various model suitable for adoption.

ERP is a process used by many companies for the management and integration of some of the crucial parts of their businesses. These software applications are crucial to companies because they help in planning resources through the integration of all the business processes required to run the companies with a single system (Summer, 2020).

It helps to integrate planning, sales, marketing, finance, and human resources.

The most important priority for the ERP team is system integration of ERP with the business processes that happen due to the excessive customization of ERP that also elongates implementation time. The business processes should be left alone, and ERP is customized after implementation bottlenecks are removed.

The business process should be left alone only after initial testing done by the ERP implementation team.

The benefit of integrating the companies across the supply chain is that it creates synchronization of the business processes of the industry peers, which helps create cost efficiencies in the supply chain. That can be used to implement just in time too.

ERP is the installation of software to manage the supply chain, manufacturing, and financial processes of an organization. The software helps to gather all the business data. The process of ERP implementation involves –

Installation of the software.

Transferring financial data to the new system.

Configuring users and processes.

Training the users for the software.

However, first, it is needed to identify the exact company needs with the help of key performance indicator (KPIs).

The ERP process’s implementation involves change as there is always some resistance when the installation of software occurs. It is crucial to have the change management strategy for a smooth ongoing process to manage the change (Hamdan, Majed, and Azeddine, 2016). To achieve the desired outcome, change management needs tools, techniques, and processes. Besides, change management prevents ERP system failure.

References:

Hamdan, M. A, Majed, A and Azeddine, C (2016). A comparative study and evaluation of ERP reference models in the context of ERP IT-driven implementation: SAP ERP as a case study. Retrieved from https://online.calmu.edu/pluginfile.php/214238/mod…

Summer, H (2020). Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/erp.asp