You will play the role of a business analyst who has been tasked to select among

Question

You will play the role of a business analyst who has been tasked to select among three alternatives "ERP solutions" to data and process integration problems at Amelectserv. This scenario exercise "simulates" a task that a business analyst would be expected to perform. You are to present an analysis, in the THIRD PERSON… as if you were an employee of Amelectserv and you were making a recommendation up the chain of command on which ERP system to go with. You have a number of documents, including the bids and the background documents and relevant assigned readings to draw upon for this analysis. The bottom line of this document is to propose a recommendation for which ERP solution is best for the firm.

(TCO) Total cost of ownership

AMELECTSERV ERP IMPLEMENTATION COMPANY BACKGROUND Amelectsery is an electrical service provider in the Northwest of the United States for more than ten years. The Company provides its services to mainly commercial clients that are in manufacturing, telecom, commercial office and residential buildings, corporate campuses, and hospitals. The founder and CEO, Kyle Offenwrong, began servicing senior living facilities in the Eugene, Oregon area. This work led to contacts for additional facilities in Salem and Portland Oregon. The growth of the Company continued as it gained a reputation with branches into local hospitals and then universities. As the reputation and sales increased, the Company moved into the Seattle/Tacoma area which resulted in even more growth (see Figure 1). In the previous five years the sales have almost tripled Year Sales in millions of (us) 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 0.3 0.9 2.2 4.3 6.4 8.3 10.2 14.8 21.2 30.9 20.1 40.0 46.4 014 Figure 1 Annual Sales of Amelectserv The extraordinary growth of the Company led to challenges in terms of information overload which made the management of information extremely challenging. In the previous month, in an effort to bid a new major project, Offenwrong found data to be not available when he needed it. The bid required that data be gathered from multiple systems with sometime conflicting data and the effort to gather the information for the bid was high. Even though the Company won the bid, some of the costs used in the calculations were not current, some by over a year

Explanation / Answer

In my view the best solution for the firm for its database management and integration would be going for an ERP solution on cloud and accepting the proposed bid from BERP corp although higher. The reasons given are as follows:

1) An ERP solution on cloud would be suggested because the company has been growing at a vary fast rate so its customer base and employees will become very high in coming years. So, relying on customized solutions ie maintaining data on excel with no integration and little bit of customization will do no good on long term. More over there would be data redundancy.

2) An inhouse ERP system will not be viable because if the systems will be installed in inhouse terminals there will be no internet problem but IT systems need to be upgraded from time to time for security issues. So, upgradation will cost a lot.

3) Whereas if ERP solutions are implemented on cloud then the entire backoffice database management, upgrades, tech support,backup, security,disaster recovery and scalbility will be completely managed by the service provider thus saving on manpower costs in long term.

4) Although initial investment will be high but due to greater efficiency and scalability the long term costs will be lower. It might take sometime for employees to learn the systems and processes but will be a great value addition if firm wants to grow at a faster rate.

5) BERP's quotes should be accepted because it has proven experience of successfully handling and implementing large databases. And the company's important information cannot be compromised at an excuse for cheaper quotation. Moreover as BERP is a large corporation so when Amelectserve becomes huge they have to handle bigger volumes of data where BERP's expertise can be helpful and they can also get value for price because of economies of scale.

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