Information technology in global arena & enterprise resource planning

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT & ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
~ Subhajit Bhattacharya

Agenda
• Information Technology for Business Globalization
• Blends of Enterprise Operations
• Enterprise Operations Integration
• Information Digitization
• Databases & Knowledge Hubs
• Business Intelligence
• Enterprise Resource Planning: Introduction
• ERP Components
• ERP Technology Stack & Infrastructure Requirements (SAP, Oracle Apps,
Sales Force, JD Edwards, etc.)
• ERP Services – A detailed discussion
• Managing ERP Project Life Cycle (Cost-Time-Scope analysis)
• Planning & Implementation of ERP Suite
• Challenges & Impediments of ERP Implementation & Administration
• Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
• ERP as a Service on a Cloud Infrastructure

Information Technology – A Scientific Yoga

Information Technology for Business Globalization
• Technology and cheap access to energy have altered the way the world does
business, by reducing the costs in almost every dimension of transaction across the
globe
• With the advent of high end technologies, information and related stuffs are
available in the finger tips or in the lips (with the help of voice recognition system)
• Distances are no more barrier but it is all about communication at the correct time
for the correct product/service through the correct channels
• Monetary transactions have become simple and more secured
• Transparency in transaction is now viable and gives an intangible satisfaction to the
end user
• Industrial operations are cohesively integrated over a common platform to make
sure the industry should work uniformly across the globe without any hitch or
hindrances
• Information technology (IT) benefits the global business by allowing organizations to
work more efficiently and to maximize productivity. Faster communication,
electronic storage and the protection of records are advantages that IT can have on
an enterprise.

Key business advantages:
• Availability of information for business & individual decisions
– Information are now readily available in the World Wide Web
– Search engines are further customized as per user behaviour, so that it may generate knowledge cluster based
on the data or information being searched
– Cloud infrastructure has made the information availability easier as compared to earlier days
• Storing & protecting information
– Information technology enables electronic storage systems to protect personal & organization’s valuable
records in encrypted form to make secured from the intruders, hackers, viruses, or Trojans.
– Cloud infrastructure has made this possible for much extent.
• Automated processes & workflows
– Organization’s autonomous processes are now clubbed together and automated to minimize human
interference and thus increase productivity and throughput and at the same time reducing human error.
– Workflows are one of the key components of ERP systems enabling a user to locate the status of his/her
request and therefore appropriate action can be taken proactively.
• Work Remotely
– With the advent of Information Technology, it gives a user a feeling of virtual reality. Location doesn’t matter, it
is all about technology that connects organizations and people spread across the globe.
– Integrated ERP systems, Web based applications, emails, chat servers, blogs, social sites, etc. have made life
easier to connect with organizations and the people irrespective of the location.
• Communication
– IT has made communication easier and quicker. Some of the applications or tools like email, chat server,
audio/video conferencing (IP telephony etc.), database synchronizer, etc. have made communication a child’s
game.
Data Information Knowledge Decision

Key business advantages:
• Efficiency
– Streamlined work flow systems, shared storage and collaborative work spaces can increase efficiency in a
business and allow employees to process a greater level of work in a shorter period of time. Information
technology systems can be used to automate routine tasks, to make data analysis easier and to store data in a
manner that can easily be retrieved for future use. Technology can also be used to answer customer questions
through email, in a real-time chat session or through a telephone routing system that connects a customer to
an available customer service agent.
• Competitive Advantage
– Adoption of information technology resources allows companies to maintain a competitive advantage over
their rivals. Companies using a first-movers strategy can use information technology to create new products,
distance their products from the existing market or enhance their customer services. Companies that follow a
low-cost product strategy can look to information technology solutions to reduce their costs through increased
productivity and reduced need for employee overhead. Businesses can also build-in information technology to
their products that makes it difficult for customers to switch platforms or products. Therefore with the virtue of
IT, an organization can establish a loyal customer base which in turn uplift company’s brand value.
• Economic Efficiencies
– Companies can harness information technology resources to lower their costs. Using IT infrastructure,
redundant tasks can be centralized at one location. For example, a large company could centralize their payroll
function at one location to lower employee costs. Economic efficiencies can also be realized by migrating high-
cost functions into an online environment. Companies can offer email support for customers that may have a
lower cost than a live customer support call. Cost savings could also be found through outsourcing
opportunities, remote work options and lower-cost communication options.
• Products/Services Availability
– With the help of IT, organizations can display and sale their products and services online. Flip cart, Amazon,
eBay, Snapdeal, Book my show, Yepme, Junglee, Myntra, Jabong, HomeShop18, etc are some of the famous
online shopping portals which enable end users to purchase products or services with reasonable discounted
rates. Paypal, Zaakpay, Payu, Superpay, Payumoney, etc. are several online payment gateways that supports
monetary transactions in synchronization with banks through debit/credit cards.

An evolution of user interface era after another…
 User eXperiences (UX)
 Surface Computing by Microsoft
 Smart phone technologies
 Graphical User Interfaces
 Command interfaces

• Stand alone application
• Client Server application (Windows based)
• Client Server application (Web based)
• N-tier application
• Grid application
• Cloud application & infrastructure
A quick glance on application type…

Blends of Enterprise Operations
Business Integration & Intelligence
Workflow Manager
Dashboard & MIS
Marketing &
Sales
Engineering &
Operations
Production &
Manufacturing
Inventory &
Logistics
Finance
HR
IT
Legal

Blends of Enterprise Operations
• An enterprise typically has two operations:
– Line of Business (Primary)
– Support functional departments (Secondary)
• In order to run the business smooth and in competitive pace, primary line of businesses
should be integrated and then the secondary and last but not least support functional
departments
• Once each department is vertically integrated so we plan the horizontal integration
v v
Vertical
Integration Vertical
Integration
Line of Business Secondary
Operations
Integration Bus

Enterprise Operations Integration
Business
Analyst
Senior Executives
Senior Managers
Project
Manager
PMO
Admin
IT
HR Finance
Legal
Engineering
Team
Manufacturing &
Production
Inventory & Warehouse Logistics Stores House
Telly Caller & Lead
Generation
Prospected &
Existing Customers
Raw Materials
Vendors
Vendor
Manager
Market Analytics
Business Decision Making & Projects
Management
Engineering &
Manufacturing
Supply Chain Management
Customer
Relationship
Management
Procurement & Vendor
Management
Supporting Operations

• An enterprise may have different autonomous departments
• Every department performs their own set of tasks
• Input of one department is fed into another to process further to get required outputs
• Enterprise operations integration implies a holistic approach to integrate heterogeneous enterprise
operations into a common platform so that the information must be available transparently and on a
real time basis at the right time, at the right place and to the right person with minimal cost and effort
• There should be a service driven bus architecture that ensures an integration of operations cohesively
on a secured platform
• It majorly implies a common database system that should be capable enough to perform database
transactions and a unified application interface to:
– Feed data
– Process the data
– Display information
– Prepare dashboard & reports
– Enable decision making capabilities by inheriting the BI capabilities
– Show workflows
– Push emails and alerts
– Apply security and authenticity protocols by assigning roles & responsibilities by virtue of identity management
– Generate log reports
– Optimize application & database performance
Enterprise Operations Integration

• Digitisation is the process by which physical or manual records such as text, images, video,
and audio are converted into digital forms.
• This is of utmost importance when projects need directions based on already established
facilities and the implementing agency needs to find the scope for expansion.
• Digitised data offers the following benefits: Long term preservation of documents or images,
orderly archiving of documents, easy & customized access to information, easy information
dissemination through images & text, cross border accessibility of information within fraction
of seconds, etc.
• Digitizing means simply capturing an analogue signal in digital form (0s & 1s).
• Analogue Digital Conversion (ADC) algorithm being used to convert he analogue signals to
digital representations
• Digitization improves organization’s overall performance by saving data in a digital form
therefore they can be processed easily and so also are available at any point of time and can
be shared across the globe. These digitized information can further be processed to prepare
information or knowledge bank. No only this, these digital information can be kept for long
period in an archive so as to refer them in future even after decades or so. Therefore overall
it basically enhances the productivity of an organization.
Information Digitization

POS Database
Regional
Databases
Centralized Databases &
DWH for archiving Knowledge Report &
Dashboard
Textual Bar Code
POS Executive
Hand Held scanner to
convert text into digital form
Point of Sales – Information Digitization

• POS executive scans the textual bar code from the product with the help of a
scanner
• Scanner converts the text data into digital data and fetch related information from
the database
• Once the payment is done so the invoice is generated and the same is saved in the
database along with the product details
• At the end of the day, all the details are get stored into another database located
either in the same region or somewhere else in the globe
• The transaction so happened updates the financial journal, inventory, and other
databases
• In a weekly or fortnightly basis the data stored in various databases across the
globe are collected in a centralized database acting as an archive database
• Senior executives and other key stakeholders make use of this master database to
get report and dashboard after processing the digital data into digital information
• Digital information so produced is further processed as per the business need and
logic to provide reports and dashboard in order to give certain level of knowledge
to make adequate business decisions

Data Entry
Centralized Database to collect
all the data across the globe
Database Cluster to store
processed data
Data processed: ETL
Data Warehouse to store information
Data Mining
BI Operations on
information
Dashboard & report created based on processed
information
Business decision made
Information & Technology

• Data processing is "a sequence of operations performed on data to process it further for creating information; which
is later more processed to form a knowledge.
• Set of such knowledge is stored in a centralized database to form knowledge base.
• Data processing may involve various processes, including:
 Data validation – Ensuring that supplied data is "clean, correct and useful."
 Sorting – "arranging items in some sequence and/or in different sets."
 Data summarization
 Data aggregation – combining multiple pieces of data.
 Statistical analysis – the "collection, organization, analysis, interpretation and presentation of data.".
 Reporting – list detail or summary data or computed information.
Raw Data Process Processed Data Business Logic Information
Information
Segregation &
Refinement
Knowledge Business
intelligence
Decision
Enablement
Reports & Dashboard
Data Processing

• A database is an organized collection of data. The data is typically organized to model
relevant aspects of reality (for example, the availability of chairs in a theatre), in a way that
supports processes requiring this information (for example, finding the correct chair to book
it).
• A database-management system (DBMS) is a collection of interrelated data and a set of
programs to access those data.
• Database management systems (DBMSs) are specially designed applications that interact
with the user, other applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze data. A
general-purpose database management system (DBMS) is a software system designed to
allow the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of databases.
• To access information from a database, you need a database management system (DBMS).
This is a collection of programs that enables you to enter, organize, and select data in a
database.
A database is any collection of related data. A database is a persistent, logically coherent collection of
inherently meaningful data, relevant
to some aspects of the real world.
Databases

• A database-management system (DBMS) is a collection of interrelated data and a set
of programs to access those data.
• Database management systems provide several functions in addition to simple file
management:
– Allow concurrency
– Control security
– Maintain data integrity
– Provide for backup and recovery
– Control redundancy
– Allow data independence
– Provide non-procedural query language
– Perform automatic query optimization
Databases

• ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) is a set of properties that guarantee that
database transactions are processed reliably. In the context of databases, a single logical
operation on the data is called a transaction.
• Atomicity
– Atomicity requires that each transaction is "all or nothing": if one part of the transaction fails,
the entire transaction fails, and the database state is left unchanged. An atomic system must
guarantee atomicity in each and every situation, including power failures, errors, and crashes. To
the outside world, a committed transaction appears (by its effects on the database) to be
indivisible ("atomic"), and an aborted transaction does not happen.
• Consistency
– The consistency property ensures that any transaction will bring the database from one valid
state to another. Any data written to the database must be valid according to all defined rules,
including but not limited to constraints, cascades, triggers, and any combination thereof. This
does not guarantee correctness of the transaction in all ways the application programmer might
have wanted (that is the responsibility of application-level code) but merely that any
programming errors do not violate any defined rules.
ACID Rule

• Isolation
– The isolation property ensures that the concurrent execution of transactions results in a system
state that would be obtained if transactions were executed serially, i.e. one after the other.
Providing isolation is the main goal of concurrency control. Depending on concurrency control
method, the effects of an incomplete transaction might not even be visible to another
transaction.
• Durability
– Durability means that once a transaction has been committed, it will remain so, even in the
event of power loss, crashes, or errors. In a relational database, for instance, once a group of
SQL statements execute, the results need to be stored permanently (even if the database
crashes immediately thereafter). To defend against power loss, transactions (or their effects)
must be recorded in a non-volatile memory.
ACID Rule

• A database system provides a data definition language to specify the database schema and a
data manipulation language to express database queries and updates.
• Data Definition Table:
– We specify a database schema by a set of definitions expressed by a special language called a data-
definition language (DDL).
– create table account (account-number char(10), balance integer)
– Execution of the above DDL statement creates the account table. In addition, it updates a special set
of tables called the data dictionary or data directory.
– A data dictionary contains metadata—that is, data about data. The schema of a table is an example
of metadata. A database system consults the data dictionary before reading or modifying actual
data.
– We specify the storage structure and access methods used by the database system by a set of
statements in a special type of DDL called a data storage and definition language. These statements
define the implementation details of the database schemas, which are usually hidden from the
business users but accessible to DBAs.
Database Languages

Network structure: Similar to hierarchical,
network structures also organizes data using
nodes and branches. But, unlike hierarchical,
each child node can be linked to multiple, higher
parent nodes.
Hierarchical structure: Organizes data in a series of
levels, hence why it is called hierarchical. Its top to
bottom like structure consists of nodes and
branches; each child node has branches and is only
linked to one higher level parent node.
Relational structure: Unlike network and hierarchical, a relational
database organizes its data in a series of related tables. This gives
flexibility as relationships between the tables are built.
A B
C
Database Structures
Object-oriented database management system (OODBMS): sometimes shortened to ODBMS for object database management system), is a
database management system (DBMS) that supports the modelling and creation of data as objects.

Knowledge Hubs
Heterogeneous data from all possible sources
over World Wide Web
Filtering & Processing
Processed Data Bases
Filtering & Processing
Centralized Information Base Repository
Data/Information Cubes
Organization
specific BI tool
BI Analytics
Knowledge
Bases
Reports &
Dashboards
Spider Robot/Web Crawler
Databases – Unprocessed but Segregated Data

• Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of
data, both structured and unstructured.
• Big data is a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional data processing
applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, curation, search,
sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, and information privacy.
• The source of these large datasets could be from various clusters across the globe
including the world wide web.
• There are various business intelligence and analytical tools used to extract, filter, purify,
transform, segregate these large datasets to prepare meaningful sub datasets.
• These datasets further go through several sets of further processing to get moulded into
processed data and further to that useful information.
• These information are generally business or organization specific.
• The information so extracted are further passed through various hops of data analytics
tools in the form of cubes to get processed on BI integration and analytical modules
• Once the information is processed so it generates a meaningful and decision supportive
reports and dashboards
• All these highly processed decision specific information are further tuned in and stored in
the knowledge hub repository for future analysis and to make business judgements
holistically.
• Knowledge hubs are having huge collection of such highly processed data which can
generate various customized reports and dashboards based on interrelated knowledge
areas.
Knowledge Hubs

Client Server Architecture
System Architecture – Quick Glance

Web Based Client Server Architecture
System Architecture – Quick Glance

Request & Response
ERP Server
ERP Application
Page on Client
Machine

Source: http://igorportela.com/business-intelligence/
Databases & Knowledge Hubs

• Data warehouse – logical collection
of information – gathered from
operational databases – used to
create business intelligence that
supports business analysis activities
and decision-making tasks
– Multidimensional
– Rows and columns
– Multi Layered
– Many times called Hypercube
Datawarehouse

• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is business process management software that allows an organization to use
a system of integrated applications to manage the business and automate many back office functions related to
technology, services and human resources.
• ERP is an overall concept to integrate individual applications of an enterprise into a one single shell to
automate the business operations and thus accelerate the overall productivity. When this is being achieved
technically with the help of a software then it is known as ERP application.
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is business management software—usually a suite of integrated
applications—that a company can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business
activities, including:
– Product planning, cost
– Manufacturing or service delivery
– Marketing and sales
– Inventory management
– Shipping and payment
• ERP provides an integrated view of core business processes, often in real-time, using common databases
maintained by a database management system. ERP systems track business resources—cash, raw materials,
production capacity—and the status of business commitments: orders, purchase orders, and payroll. The
applications that make up the system share data across the various departments (manufacturing, purchasing,
sales, accounting, etc.) that provide the data.
• ERP facilitates information flow between all business functions, and manages connections to outside
stakeholders.
Enterprise Resource Planning: Introduction

• Major benefits (but not limited to) of ERP for businesses:
1. Reduced complexity of maintaining heterogeneous applications and databases for different
departments or operations
2. System integration
3. Data integration from legacy to destination systems through EAI components
4. Highly customizable to fit into business needs
5. Quick data accessibility, availability, consistency, integrity, and quality
6. Real time information for much extent
7. Business Intelligence & Analytics capabilities for rationale business decisions
8. Scalability
9. Cost efficiency
10. Easy to maintain
11. Customized reports and dashboards on fly
12. Adherence of regulatory compliance
13. Optimal operations integration
14. Security & identity management
15. Virtualization in case of cloud based ERP

 Quick glance on ERP
 Bit more into ERP…

• Inventory Control System (ICS) is an an
application that automates the process of
tracking inventory and related information.
• The kinds of inventory tracked with an
inventory control system may include
almost every type of tangible good, like
food, clothing, books, equipment, and any
other item that consumers, retailers, or
wholesalers may purchase.
• An inventory control system is a system the
encompasses all aspects of managing a
company's inventories; purchasing,
shipping, receiving, tracking, warehousing
and storage, turnover, and reordering.
• It may happen every individual operation is
tracked by a distinct application, however
IMS plays a crucial role to integrate them
and make the data available across all the
units in a real time basis.

• Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is a computer-based production planning and
inventory control system.
• Material requirements planning (MRP) is a production planning, scheduling, and
inventory control system used to manage manufacturing processes.
• An MRP system is intended to simultaneously meet three objectives:
– Ensure materials are available for production and products are available for delivery to customers.
– Maintain the lowest possible material and product levels in store
– Plan manufacturing activities, delivery schedules and purchasing activities.
• The basic functions of an MRP system include: inventory control, bill of material
processing, and elementary scheduling. MRP helps organizations to maintain low
inventory levels. It is used to plan manufacturing, purchasing and delivering activities.
• MRP deals with several areas like What items are required, How many are required,
When are they required, etc.

• Inputs:
– The end item (or items) are created. This is sometimes called Independent Demand, or Level "0" on BOM
(Bill of materials).
– Amount required at a time.
– Schedule to meet demand.
– Shelf life of stored materials.
– Inventory status records: Records of net materials available for use already in stock (on hand) and
materials on order from suppliers.
– Bills of materials: Details of the materials, components and sub-assemblies required to make each product.
– Planning Data: This includes but not limited to all the restraints and directions to produce the end items.
This includes such items as: Routing, Labour and Machine Standards, Quality and Testing Standards,
Pull/Work Cell and Push commands, Lot sizing techniques (i.e. Fixed Lot Size, Lot-For-Lot, Economic Order
Quantity), Scrap Percentages, and other inputs.
• Outputs:
– Recommended Production Schedule: which lays out a detailed schedule of the required minimum start
and completion dates, with quantities, for each step of the Routing and Bill Of Material required to satisfy
the demand from the Master Production Schedule (MPS).
– Recommended Purchasing Schedule: This lays out both the dates that the purchased items should be
received into the facility AND the dates that the Purchase orders, or Blanket Order Release should occur to
match the production schedules.
– Purchase orders Report: An order to a supplier to provide materials.
– Reschedule Notices: These recommend cancelling, increasing, delaying or speeding up existing orders.

• Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) is defined as a method for the effective planning of all resources of a
manufacturing company. Ideally, it addresses operational planning in units, financial planning, and has a
simulation capability to answer "what-if" questions and extension of closed-loop MRP.
• This is not exclusively a software function, but the management of people skills, requiring a dedication to
database accuracy, and sufficient computer resources. It is a total company management concept for using
human and company resources more productively.
• Characteristic basic modules in an MRP II system are:
– Master production schedule (MPS) & Item master data (technical data)
– Bill of materials (BOM) (technical data)
– Production resources data (manufacturing technical data)
– Inventories and orders (inventory control)
– Purchasing management
– Material requirements planning (MRP)
– Shop floor control (SFC) & Capacity planning or capacity requirements planning (CRP)
– Standard costing (cost control) &Cost reporting / management (cost control)
• Additional auxiliary systems such as:
– Business planning & Lot traceability
– Contract management
– Tool management
– Engineering change control & Configuration management
– Shop floor data collection
– Sales analysis and forecasting & Finite capacity scheduling (FCS)

• Additional systems integrated with MRP (II) are such as:
– General ledger
– Accounts payable (purchase ledger)
– Accounts receivable (sales ledger)
– Sales order management
– Distribution requirements planning (DRP)
– Automated warehouse management
– Project management
– Technical records & Estimating tool
– Computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM)
• Key Benefits:
– Better control of inventories
– Improved scheduling
– Productive relationships with suppliers
• For design / engineering:
– Improved design control
– Better quality and quality control
• For financial and costing:
– Reduced working capital for inventory
– Improved cash flow through quicker deliveries
– Accurate inventory records

• ERP application has evolved gradually as the industries got aware of the necessities of integrating their several
applications into a single unit.
• Initially the objective was to integrate the Inventory Control Systems, Material Management system,
Manufacturing resource planning and Finance modules. However later industries have observed the benefits to
have the individual departments integrated into one core application.
• ERP systems experienced rapid growth in the 1990s. But because the year 2000 problem and introduction of the
euro disrupted legacy systems, many companies took the opportunity to replace their old systems with ERP.
• Initially the focus of ERP systems was to automate the back office functions that did not directly affect
customers and the general public, however later Front office functions, such as customer relationship
management (CRM), Point of Sales (POS), or e–business systems such as e–commerce, e–government, e–
telecom, and e–finance—or supplier relationship management (SRM) got integrated, when the Internet
simplified to give a platform to communicate with external stakeholders.
• ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems typically include the following characteristics:
– An integrated system that operates closely to real time basis
– A common backend database system that supports all the integrated/individual applications running for
the industry
– A consistent look and feel across modules
– A strong security to make the information intact of any threats or loss
– Installation of the system with elaborate application/data integration by the Information Technology (IT)
department, provided the implementation is not done in small steps. Basically high degree of
customization required on the vanilla version.

Enterprise Resource Planning: Value Chain Model
Every department may have an individual application associated. However ERP tool can make it possible to integrate
business functions from various legacy systems to make information available under one roof with common UI in the form of
various customized reports and dashboards to take appropriate business decisions.

• Banking & Financial Services
• Construction
• Energy & Utilities
• Government
• Healthcare
• High Tech
• Insurance
• Packaging & Logistics
• Life Sciences & Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Media & Information Services
• Metals & Mining
• Commodities, Retail & Consumer
Products
• Telecom & Wireless
• Travel, Aviation, Transportation &
Hospitality
• Education
• Research organization
Types of Industries that ERP Serves

Enterprise Resource Planning Components
 Transactional database
 Management reporting portal/dashboard
 Business intelligence system: Integration, Processing, Analytics, Reporting Services
 Resource planning and scheduling systems
 Resource analytics
 EAI components: To integrate with external or legacy sources to collect or integrate the information
 In-built search engines
 Document management system (EDMS)
 Messaging/chat servers
 Workflow management system
 Integrated Identity Management System for system and information security
 Data encryption and compression

ERP Technology Stack & Infrastructure Requirements

ERP Technology Stack & Infrastructure Requirements
 What is ERP
 A Concept
 A functional flow to integrate business processes & operations
 A platform to design an application integrate the business functions cohesively over the common architecture
 What is ERP as technology
 When the concept of ERP has been moulded inside the technology framework
 An application (preferably digital application) having capability to integrate two or more business operations on a common
framework or architecture to communicate, process, and store information
 Technology may extend to give integration and analytical strength to its users to make business decisions
 Technology may enable to produce various customized reports for business assessments
 Technology thus gives flexibilities to make the application user and business friendly and should exhibit certain features and
characteristics to give an essence of an ERP system
 What is ERP technology stack
 The set of ERP applications that are available in the market for business or study or R&D purpose
 ERP applications may come as Proprietary software, open source, or cloud based
 Some of the most common ERP applications are: SAP, Oracle Apps, Microsoft Dynamics, Sales Force, JD Edwards, Epicor, IBM
Maximo, Tally ERP 9 , CGI Momentum
 What is ERP technology infrastructure
 For any application to run minimum infrastructure is required therefore to run ERP smoothly proper infrastructure is
required
 Infrastructure defines the clients, servers (application, database, web, and files), network, storage, load balancers, backup
devices, security devices & protocols, routers, datacentres
 It is important to understand how ERP infrastructure should be configured optimally to give best of a kind throughput
 How all these are integrated to each other
 What protocol to be used to integrate various applications running in an organization and converge them into one single
architecture
 How to configure infrastructure and deploy the ERP enterprise suite to get that available to the end users
 How to administer the performance and server optimization for the best and real time information synchronization and
availability

ERP Services – A detailed discussion

• Designed to support organization-wide process coordination and integration

• Supply Chain Management
– Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the management of the flow of
goods and services. It includes the movement and storage of raw
materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of
origin to point of consumption.
– Supply Chain Management is a multidisciplinary programme designed
to help an organization to design innovative strategies and deploy
differentiated solutions that can help the organisation to serve its
customers in an optimal fashion without affecting its quality and
enable branding.
– Supply chain management, is the active management of supply chain
activities to maximize customer value and achieve a sustainable
competitive advantage. It represents a holistic effort by the supply
chain firms to develop and run supply chains in the most effective &
efficient ways possible. Supply chain activities cover everything from
product development, sourcing, production, and logistics, as well as
the information systems needed to coordinate these activities.

Benefits of Supply Chain Management

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system for managing a company's interactions with
current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate, and
synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.:
• Common features of CRM software include:
• Marketing automation: CRM tools with marketing automation capabilities can automate repetitive
tasks to enhance marketing efforts to customers at different points in the lifecycle. For example, as
sales prospects come into the system, the system might automatically send them marketing
materials, typically via email or social media, with the goal of turning a sales lead into a full-fledged
customer.
• Sales force automation: Sales force automation is meant to prevent duplicate efforts between a
salesperson and a customer. A CRM system can help achieve this by automatically tracking all
contact and follow-ups between both sides.
• Contact centre automation: Designed to reduce tedious aspects of a contact centre agent's job,
contact centre automation might include pre-recorded audio that assists in customer problem-
solving and information dissemination. Various software tools that integrate with the agent's
desktop tools can handle customer requests in order to cut down the time of calls and simplify
customer service processes.
• Geolocation technology, or location-based services: Some CRM systems include technology that
can create geographic marketing campaigns based on customers' physical locations, sometimes
integrating with popular location-based GPS apps. Geolocation technology can also be used as a
networking or contact management tool in order to find sales prospects based on location.

CRM Framework

Managing ERP Project Life Cycle (Cost-Time-Scope analysis)
• A project is a temporary endeavour with a realistic scope, attainable timeline, and
feasible cost.
• When ERP suite is implemented in an organization with a defined scope, timeline, and
cost then it is called a ERP project.
• Project management is the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute
projects effectively and efficiently. It’s a strategic competency for organizations, enabling
them to tie project results to business goals — and thus, better compete in their
markets.
• Project management is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and
experience to achieve the project objectives.
S
Smart
M
Measurable
A Attainable
R
Realistic
T
Time bound
Initiation Planning Execution
Controlling
&
Monitoring
Closure
Project Management Life Cycle

Integration Scope Time
Cost Quality Procurement
Human resources Communications Risk management
Stakeholder management
Project management has below ten knowledge areas as per PMBOK:
• A work breakdown structure is a key project deliverable that organizes the team's work into
manageable sections.
• A work breakdown structure is a key project deliverable that organizes the team's work into
manageable sections.
• WBS is a hierarchical and incremental decomposition of the project into phases, deliverables and
work packages. It is a tree structure, which shows a subdivision of effort required to achieve an
objective; for example a program, project, and contract.

• Software Licenses
• IT Infrastructure
• Professional Services
• Data & System Migration
• Staffing cost
• Training & Mentoring
• Integration & Testing
• Data Conversion
• Data Analysis
• ERP Consultants
• Technical Team
• Functional Team
• Administrator

Planning & Implementation of ERP Suite
• Understand the business requirements
• Analyse the company size and users
• Determine the budget and the scope
• Finalize buy-in or in-house product development
• Evaluate the existing ERP products and services in the market inline with your require requirements
• Set Realistic Expectations for ERP Implementation
• Understand and procure the required infrastructure
• Chart down integration mechanism
• List down the BI tools required to be integrated
• Prepare a holistic project management plan considering all the 10 knowledge areas
• Prepare staffing and contracting plan of the required stakeholders: ERP Suite provider, Service
Provider, Consultants, Techno-Functional engineers and analysts, trainers, and users
• Phase wise ERP suite rollout post UAT clearance from all the stakeholders

Planning & Implementation of ERP Suite
ERP Suite Provider (SAP/Oracle, Microsoft, etc.)
End Users
3rd. Party ERP Support
Consultants
In-house ERP Consultant
Techno-Functional engineers & analysts
Trainers
Industry

Challenges & Impediments of ERP Implementation & Administration
• Lack of requirement understanding
• Improper evaluation of ERP business suite
• Irrational project planning
• Lack of senior manager commitment
• Ineffective engineering teams
• Ineffective communications with users
• Insufficient training of end-users or unavailability of the trainer
• Failure to get user support
• Attempts to build non-holistic bridges to legacy applications
• Improper usage of BI tools & business logic
• Wrong database choice
• Conflicts between user departments
• Composition of project team members
• Failure to redesign business process
• Misunderstanding of change requirements
• Improper UAT
• Lack of documentation: Functional/Technical/Test documents
• Unavailability of 3rd. Party support consulting teams
• Improper after sales service agreement with the parent vendor or with the implementation
team
• Non-adherence of ERP standards

Challenges & Impediments of ERP Implementation & Administration

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
• Enterprise application integration (EAI) is the use of software and computer systems'
architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.
• Enterprise application integration is an integration framework composed of a collection of
technologies and services which form a middleware to enable integration of systems and
applications across an enterprise.
• Enterprise application integration is the process of linking heterogeneous applications within
a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the
maximum extent possible, while avoiding any compromise in the overall throughput.
Applications can be linked either at the back-end (database) or the front-end (GUI).
• EAI is an applied technology aimed at modernizing, consolidating (integrating), and
coordinating the computer applications in an enterprise.
• It works on either of the two major topologies: hub-and-spoke and bus.
• There are two patterns that EAI systems implement:
– Mediation (intra-communication)
– Federation (inter-communication)
• EAI supports both asynchronous and synchronous access patterns, asynchronous being
typical in the mediation case and synchronous in the federation case.
• Usage of EAI:
– User Interface Integration
– Data Integration
– Application Integration
– Method Integration

ERP as a Service on a Cloud Infrastructure
• Cloud computing is the delivery of on-demand computing resources—everything from
applications to data centres—over the Internet on a pay-for-use basis.
• loud computing involves deploying groups of remote servers and software networks that
allow centralized data storage and online access to computer services or resources.
• Clouds can be classified as: public, private or hybrid.
• Major service models:
– Software as a Service (SAAS)
– Platform as a Service (PAAS)
– Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS)
– Storage as a Service
• Advantages: Cost effective, Agility, Device and location independence due to virtualization,
Mobility, Easy support & maintenance, Better productivity, Scalability, Reliability with
effective DR plan, Service on choice flexibility, security.
• ERP application can also be implemented over Cloud infrastructure and therefore it is also
known as ERP as a Service.
• Sales Force ERP application is one of the pioneering companies providing ERP suite over the
cloud.
• ERP application is hosted over a number of servers in various cloud based datacentres.
• Business users located remotely can access the ERP suite on pay per subscription basis.
• ERP as a service is an extended version of SAAS with its own infrastructure deployed for
enabling remote access over a secured network and platform.

ERP as a Service on a Cloud Infrastructure

Subhajit Bhattacharya
subhajit.bhattacharya07@gmail.com

Information technology in global arena & enterprise resource planning

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