Weekly Question #3
Leave your response as a comment on this post by the beginning of class on May 31th, 2016. Your response only needs to be about three or four sentences. For these weekly questions, I’m mainly interested in your understanding of the readings. In your response, indicate from which reading you are pulling your key points and details. You may use the same reading as another class mate, but try to pull out a point or detail that hasn’t been shared yet. As a class, you can use this to build out your Study Guide on the readings for each exam.
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Here is the question:
Select one of the readings from Unit 3 &/or 3.1 and pull out 1 key point of the reading. Provide some detail as to why this is important, based on your understanding of the readings.
ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning, but even its full name doesn’t shed much light on what ERP is or what it does. Well Said! Early in my career I worked for a software company that created and ERP for the Apparel & Footwear industry. What I can say definitively is this. ERP system can transform a business! I’ve been a part of over 30 implementations and in every case that company benefited tremendously. ERP system can streamline processes, reduce waste, improve productivity and efficiency.
The most key point in the Wiikipedia article, “Enterprise Resource Planning,” is simply the definition of ERP. The article states the definition as “a category of business-management software—typically a suite of integrated applications—that an organization can use to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities.” These activities include various processes that are vital to running the business, such as product planning, manufacturing, marketing, sales, inventory management, accounting, human resources, etc. It is important to understand the concept and function of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as it is a vital organizational tool, because it supports and integrates many business functions by facilitating the flow of information between them.
“What is an ERP?” The acronym ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning which is a shared database that supports several functions used by different business entities within an organization. With an ERP, there are various processes that are vital to running a business such as accounting, human resources, customer relationship management, inventory, order management, etc. ERP software helps to integrate these various functions into one complete system that streamlines the processes and information across the entire organization. The advantages and values to an ERP are employees have access to accurate information from one database that enables them to make more efficient and effective business decisions. ERP’s also help to decrease and/or eliminate redundancy within the processes and systems which ultimately lowers the cost of doing business as a whole!
“The Decision Making-Process” consist of ongoing processes of evaluating situations or problems, considering alternatives, making choices, and following them up with the necessary actions. The decision-making process involves seven steps: define the problem, identify limiting factors, develop potential alternatives, analyze the alternatives, select the best alternative, implement the decision, and establish control and evaluation system. Also, when it comes to define the problem is important not only attack the symptoms, but to work on the problems to have a better understanding where they come from and prevent them in the future.
“Everything You Need to Know About Open Innovation” Open innovation is a concept Dr. Henry Chesbrough originated that falls directly in that gap between business and academe. It is a more distributed, more participatory, more decentralized approach to innovation. We know that in this day and age a company no matter how big, powerful or capable can’t innovate efficiently on its own. Open innovation supplies a lot for academics to study, to smoothen business flow. And for business, open innovation means a more profitable way to innovate. Open innovation can reduce costs, accelerate time to market, increase differentiation in the market, and create new revenue streams for the company.
I chose to write about the decision making process from section 3.1. The decision making process is the key to how organizations operate. Managers are in charge of problem solving in the workplace and are called upon to make decisions. In order for managers to make the right decisions they need the right information available to them. The decision making process involves these steps: define the problem, identify limiting factors, develop potential alternatives, analyze alternatives, select the best alternative, implement the decision establish a control and evaluation system. If the managers plan has not resolved the problem then the manager did something wrong in the steps and has to go back and go over everything.
According to the article “The Decision-Making Process,” it shows clearly the efficient steps that must do before making the decision. I believe every step listed in the article is all important, however, I suppose that step “Define the problem” is the most important one. Apparently the first step is always fundamental for the success of the following steps. Throughout the step “Define the problem”, it is stated in the article: “The accurate definition of the problem affects all the steps that follow; if the problem is inaccurately defined, every step in the decision‐making process will be based on an incorrect starting point.” Thus, I believe “Define the problem” is the most important step that need to be clearly accurate.
“How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business for SAP” revealed to me how data analytics incorporates much more than just computer technology, but really jumps into business. For example, in this article, the writer discussed that when these systems use information to pick the top player/employee, it would start with numbers/numerical records, but this has started to change. These systems have started to incorporate information from HR to help make decisions. The reason I thought this was important was because in the earlier weeks, we learned how this class was to go beyond just computers, but to also incorporate the business side of things. Also, it is interesting to see how these systems are continuously tweekd to be better.
The main idea of the article “Putting the Enterprise into the Enterprise System” is keep people aware that even though ERP seems like the best solution for every company that needs real-time access to information within various departments, this system may also damage the company. Not only enterprise systems cost billions of dollars, they are designed to implement general practices that vendors assume are the best for the industry, i.e. ERP is not individualized. Thus, when considering ERP, the management should identify whether the system would meet the goals of the company, or the whole business structure would have to be changed to fit into the system.
What is ERP? ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, which is a process that is essential to running a business. There are 9 tips for selecting and implementing an ERP system. 1) Get upper management support – be aware of issues causing delay to projects. 2) Make a clear and extensive list of requirements before you start looking at vendors – focus on specific businesses processes and system requirements. 3) Don’t forget mobile users – allows users to be productive on smartphones and tablets 4) Carefully evaluate your options before selecting your ERP system – find a partner that specializes in your industry 5) Get references – 3 references 6) Think before you customize – consider the amount of customization required to configure and deploy 7)Factor in change management – projects can change day-to-day 8)Appoint an internal ERP product champion – and surround him or her with good people – someone on your staff will learn the new system inside and out – work with the vendor on data conversion – coordinate training – and act as point of contact for all employees 9) Provide the necessary time and resources for training on the ERP system
After reading “How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business For SAP”, I was able to gain a greater understanding as to the potential behind data analytics. The main idea of the article was to prove that data analytics is not just useful for big businesses. By using the NBA as its main example, the article was able to prove that small businesses can now be reached by SAP. They were even able to accurately predict various basketball-related statistics. This reminded of the “Moneyball” scenario used in baseball. Overall, it is clear that data analytics is a growing tool that is starting to be utilized by the smaller industries and companies.
“What is an ERP” defines and ERPs as a system that combines various functions in an organization to streamline information. This helps an organization stay cohesive because all departments are relying on the same date to perform their tasks. This makes a company run more efficiently. Since the 1960s ERPS have been helping companies do better.
After reading Everything You Need to Know About Open Innovation it is clear how Open Innovation closes the gap between business and academe and goes hand in hand with MIS. Open innovation allows for businesses to innovate or better ideas more efficiently by reducing costs and speeding up processes. MIS is able to manage and model this process in the two ways described by Henry Chesbrough, which is “outside in” where businesses allow outside ideas and technologies in to be used for innovation and then there is “inside out” where not used or barely used innovation ideas are allowed outside the business for other businesses to use in their innovation. With MIS managing this new area of business aptly named Open Innovation businesses are given a new tremendous opportunity to grow.
I found “How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business For SAP” to be a very interesting article regarding data analytics in small and medium sized businesses. Most businesses that size have traditionally resisted data analytics, but the similarities between the size of NBA franchises and small businesses opened a door for analytics. NBA franchises have used analytics with great success and thanks to this many small business owners have come to see how it may benefit their business as well whereas they had likely previously that the cost was too high or their knowledge of their business superior.
In the article “The Real Reason Organizations Resist Analytics”, the author breaks down reasons why organizations resist analytics. There are two sides of this argument. On the one hand, analytics can provide valuable information that can lead to greater efficiencies, but the employees at all levels can perceive the analytics as a loss of flexibility or control of a process. People tend to become vulnerable when their work will be measured. The more reliant the organization is on analytics, each level of employee becomes tied to the consequences, whether positive or negative. Organizations can fall into a trap by only subjecting employees to these measures while ignoring measures for the management of the organization.
“What is ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)” is an article that tries to simplify the meaning of the omnibus idea of ERP. Its main point is that while every company uses ERP differently they are usually used to provide departments with global company wide information. Doing this allows different departments to be able to do their tasks without having to wait for another departments information, It also allows a certain automation to some business tasks.
I’m summarizing the article “what is ERP”, which is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a powerful tool for Business. ERP software integrates various business functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information across the entire organization. The central feature of all ERP systems is a shared database that supports multiple functions used by different business units. ERP software also offers some degree of synchronized reporting and automation.
The article “The Real Reason Organizations Resist Analytics” shows the reason why organizations aren’t using analytics as much as they should. The reason that jumped put in this article is accountability. “Accountability is often the unhappy byproduct rather than desirable outcome of innovative analytics. Greater accountability makes people nervous.” I thought this was important because accountability should result in motivation but rather this angers employees. Accountability should increase productivity but instead creates a divide between management and employees. “The evolving marriage of big data to analytics increasingly leads to a phenomenon I’d describe as accountability creep.” To increase analytics on your company will increase accountability and may show gaping holes by exposing some employees.
In the “Leagues see real benefits in daily fantasy sports” article, I found that an important point was the change of stance over a period of 2-4 years. In 2012, the sports teams all agreed that legalizing fantasy sports gambling would become a bad hindrance on the sports themselves. It would take the love out of the game and fans would not be rooting for their teams anymore. Instead, they’d be rooting for their winning players they bet on. Then 2 years later, after the platforms were created, they are all singing a different tune. I believe this article shows that there was a want and need for a product and even though there were people against it, someone created the platform and built up a multi-million dollar gambling business. Where there is an idea, there is a way to make it possible with MIS.
I am summarizing the article “Everything you need to know about open innovation”. Open innovation is defined by Henry Chesbrough as,” the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation”. As stated for example, open innovation is a more profitable way to innovate because it can allow for a business to reduce costs and allow for quicker time to market; thus, allowing business to create new revenue streams. Also open innovation allows for firms to use inside and outside help to be able to innovate.
I really enjoyed the article “How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business For SAP”. It spoke to the vast ways analytics can be applied to a business and the different ways it can impact the ecosystem of that organization. I found it very intresting the challenges that major league teams posed for SAP particularly how thy function very much like a small family owned business but with the recognition of a fortune 500 company. The article really encouraged one to look outside the box in both application and implementation of analytics
In the artice about selecting and implementing an ERP system, the one tip that caught my eye was about asking for 3 references. If they can not give you 3 references they are probably do not have 3 good references because too many of them were bad. I have learned this the hard way because I never thought to do this. It is a good lesson to carry into all aspects of your life.
In the reading, what is KM? Knowledge Management Explained, a key point that caught my eye was the fact that the author adds a third type of knowledge category. Typically, knowledge is categorized as explicit or tacit. However, he believes it should be explicit, implicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is that set out in tangible for, implicit knowledge is not in tangible form but could be set as explicit and tacit, he explains, is within people and cannot be in tangible form. Having only 2 of these categories makes is easy to think about the relationships between them as simpler than they are. He states that many people overlook the fact that explicit or tacit knowledge may need to be converted into to implicit knowledge to connect Knowledge Management methods.
The article I am summarizing is titled “How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business for SAP” and it illustrates how small businesses have started using real time analytics. It is interesting to see the connection between analytics in the NBA and analytics for mom-and-pop businesses, and how these businesses have now realized the importance of real time analytics for the improvement of their business. SAP has made a system that is more relatable to these smaller business that measures more meaningful data. According to SAP, their data is more accurate than anything a human can collect.
In the article, “How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business For SAP” one key point mentioned in the reading is how many small business believe that they cannot benefit from big data services like those that SAP offers. These are often family-owned shops that tend to rely on their own personal experience and intuition to make important executive decisions about their businesses. They believe that they are too small to benefit from large data and other statistics, so they do not take advantage of some of the services that could truly benefit them. Through showing these businesses the work they have done with the NBA, SAP can grab the attention of these small businesses and potentially show them what they can offer.
In the article ERP, the author explains what an ERP is and how it can help a company. An Enterprise Resource Planning software helps companies to integrate multiple systems into one place. For example, the Sales system does not have to manually enter information into the Accounting system, because ERPs automatically sync the information across the company. This process makes the workers more efficient and makes it easier for the employees to access data of the company.
I chose the article What is ERP? One thing I learned from the article is that ERP is continuing to expand and size wise and the size of the things it encompasses. While the E in the acronym always stood for enterprise, the E now encompasses mid size companies as well because those companies along with high-growth companies are using the system. Furthermore, ERP has expanded and involves more business intelligence and sales force automation than it ever has before. I find ERP fascinating because before this class, I never thought much about the behind the scenes involvement of company processes and now I do.
The article I chose for this week is “What We Know, Now, About the Internet’s Disruptive Power”. I chose this article because I found it interesting how the dot com boom came to be, when Michael Porter applied the 5 forces framework to the phase of the digital economy it seemed as though instead of just being introduced to existing industries, it changed the face and value of the industries with new hardware, software, etc. Although, yes it is easy to see that the internet has truly helped to shape and evolve all businesses, it is interesting to see just how much value it added at the beginning of it all
“What is ERP?”
ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning. At its most basic level, ERP software integrates these various functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information across the entire organization.
The central feature of all ERP systems is a shared database that supports multiple functions used by different business units. In practice, this means that employees in different divisions—for example, accounting and sales—can rely on the same information for their specific needs.
ERP software also offers some degree of synchronized reporting and automation.
Other common ERP features include a portal or dashboard to enable employees to quickly understand the business’ performance on key metrics.
Today, ERP has expanded to encompass business intelligence (BI) while also handling “front-office” functions such as sales force automation (SFA), marketing automation and ecommerce.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions—also referred to as “cloud computing”—have helped fuel this growth. Cloud-based solutions not only make ERP software more affordable, they also make these systems easier to implement and manage. Perhaps even more importantly, cloud ERP enables real-time reporting and BI, making them even valuable to executives and staff seeking visibility into the business.
At its core, ERP helps employees do their jobs more efficiently by breaking down barriers between business units. An ERP solution:
Gives a global, real-time view of data that can enable companies to address concerns proactively and drive improvements
Improves financial compliance with regulatory standards and reduces risk
Automates core business operations such as lead-to-cash, order-to-fulfillment, and procure-to-pay processes
Enhances customer service by providing one source for billing and relationship tracking.
The article I found the most enjoyable was the article titled, “How NBA Player Analytics Opened Up A Whole New Business For SAP.” I very much enjoy the concept of applying data analytics to player personnel departments and recruiting of athletes on multiple levels of competition. I thought the key focus of this article was the idea of packaging the immense amount of data offered by companies like SAP in a simplistic format to be easily applied within their client’s generally smaller size teams or departments. Since data analytics is a new and progressive industry it mostly goes unrecognized or avoided by smaller companies because of their unfamiliarity with the industry. Most people don’t realize that major sports franchises have smaller front offices, even though, they drive in enormous revenues each year. The push to data analytics is centered around simplifying this progressive concept for smaller size teams of employees that may be not be as familiar with data and IT that large corporations would be. This simplifying of the data results allow smaller business and departments to be more approachable for large corporations like SAP.
I think that the Forbes article which discussed the question many CEO’s ask themselves about being efficient and having software customer to your business needs. The article highlighted the trade off between purchasing already done software or spending the resources to create a customer software experience. Creating your own software is certainly a rewarding experience, however the total cost to produce such tailored aspects of your business can really take a drain on the available resources.