Discuss about the Enterprise Systems in Practice.
Enterprise resource planning is a business management software that is used by the directorate to integrate its operations especially in purchasing, manufacturing and planning service delivery (Bhuiyan, 2011, p. 54). The performance of organisational processes determines efficiency, cost minimization, product quality, and customer satisfaction in a harmonised manner. With the current technology, the public sector administration seeks to optimise their operations instead of optimising functional departments for the government; this results in efficiency and effectiveness in realising their objectives of meeting the public needs. Due to this sophistication of technologies, the rise of ERP has triggered the public administration to come up with valuable strategies that integrate all the government processes efficiently (Liu, 2011, p. 10696). The major role of the public administration is ensuring productive activities that allow for a better utilisation of human, financial, physical, and technological resources. The aim of this study is providing a report that identifies the significant success factors for a successful ERP system implementation in the government sector.
The public administration aims at meeting the public needs, and this aspect makes all government agencies to have the public interest at heart. For efficient delivery of services to the citizens, government agencies create social goals which are backed by full application of ERP systems for accuracy and prompt planning of the available resources. The quality of life within a nation depends on the efficiency and effectiveness public administration (Bueno and Salmeron, 2008, p. 520). With the adoption of an ERP system, the government can integrate all its functions and control all its activities in one direction. Opting for ERP systems in public administration is a right decision for the government to take since this helps in making sound decisions for different ministries and departments.
Another objective for the government when opting for ERP system is to ensure a proper assessment of the economy investors so that they may formulate the right approaches to economic development. However, this is affected by certain barriers such as continued bureaucracy, changing administration plans, and complex laws and legislations. To overcome these drawbacks, the government needs to bring change by implementing a management model by which all the functions are integrated in such a manner that the economy may progress (Balzli and Fragniere, 2012, p. 55). Further, the use of ERP systems assists in compounding effective decision-making criteria independently for different departments of the government and thus enabling the data analysis to find out the key and potential investors in the economy. Furthermore, ERP systems bring business intelligence as this allows the building of object tools that may be collaborative to all departments of the government and thus improving productivity hence attracting more investors to the country.
The other primary objective of the government when opting for an enterprise resource planning systems is developing policies and programs that suit the public policy. Governments seek to ensure that all actions they take enhance accountability, transparency, totally inclusive, and are responsive to the public needs (Han and Park, 2009, p. 7442). The use of ERP systems brings a positive impact on the accountability of the government, and this makes it a good option for the public administration to consider while implementing its objectives. Since enterprise resource planning systems bring management solutions in all organisations where they are adopted, it is no doubt that the same will work for the government and lead to a continued success of all activities under its jurisdiction(Bueno and Salmeron, 2008, p. 52523). Opting for ERP systems enables the public administration to enhance flexibility when coming up with solutions for the underlying challenges in a particular unit.
Enterprise resource planning systems implementation is not an easy task, and this makes change management process to be complicated when it comes to technology innovation for governance change management (Hernaus, 2008, p. 6). For ERP system implementation to be successful, effective coordination of activities in the government unit is required so that managers, employees, and trading partners can collaborate effectively for the betterness of economic growth and good international relations. The critical success factors for implementing ERP systems in the public administration are as below.
The major significant excellence determinant for the implementation of ERP technology in government is the frequency over which participation and involvement of key IT experts in systems development is necessitated(Jeston, and Nelis, 2008, p. 100). The designing of a well-packaged ERP system that suits the goals of the government greatly impacts on the success of the scheme itself. The level of support realised from the top government officials impacts a great effect in the success of an ERP system as intentioned by the public administration.
The government should ensure that all decisions it makes employ carefulness in venturing its capital over the acquisition of an ERP system that matches the legacy systems. The information and technology infrastructure, networking facilities, and hardware resources are critical to the success of an ERP system(Jeston, and Nelis, 2008, p. 100). The ERP implementation involves a consistent change of information systems and business processes to an integrated IT infrastructure that employs uniformity across all the functions withing the government departments.
Communication plays a significant role in bringing understandability and convenience within all the strategies and steps taken by the public administration (Law et al., 2010, p. 298). Secure communication provides the organisation’s stakeholders with the ability to understand the aims and the projected profits of any project undertaken by the government.
The government must have clear projections and plans for the ERP system project for this enables the government to remain focused on goal implementation as stated in the mission for the year (Liet et al., 2010, p. 2). A well-laid mission and vision offer an excellent guideline for ERP implementation. Therefore, it remains important for the public administration policy to set the objectives of any project before undertaking it so as to be able to seek for top management support with the necessary resources.
Contrary to the above, there are circumstances under which the essential success factors for implementing an ERP in the public sector differ to the critical success factors typical for a private sector business; The main difference is user involvement whereby in private agencies, the implementation decision and policies flow from top management to low management level whereby the opinions and ideas of the line staff are not put into consideration (Lee et al., 2011, p. 4025). Under the public sector, the opinions of every stakeholder are put into review, and this results in the implementation of a successful ERP system software that is flexible, efficient, and cost sensitive.
The primary focus of process movement management in the public administration sector is to bring the desired commitment by the relevant stakeholders. First and foremost, the level of support and engagement from the top government authority is critical (Bhuiyan, 2011, p. 60). The top management support is the most significant level of organisational commitment when it comes to effectiveness while implementing an ERP system in the public administration sector. As a matter of fact, practical implementation of any systems in the government unit depends on the prompt alignment of the ERP system adoption with the strategic goals of the government (Balzli and Fragniere, 2012, p. 70). The central commitment and support of top management in ERP system implementation includes:
The higher level of government is mandated to be authoritative and offer sound leadership in the allocation and implementation of new technological software such as ERP systems within their operations (Hernaus, 2008, p. 8). The government must ensure that all the users of the ERP systems have the right skills and knowledge in coordinating and monitoring the newly developed software for raising the productivity level in the public administration sector.
The top management levels of all government units are responsible for ensuring adequate provision of human, financial, and technological resources to the appropriate subunits under their docket (Liu, 2011, p. 10696). With enough provision of resources, the IT staff, managers, and other employees can come up with new innovative ideas for ERP systems that are compatible with the aims and objectives of the public administration sector.
Further, the organisational level of commitment should be flexible by building flexibility into the IT infrastructure so as to improve productivity as well as reducing the information technology costs. The public administration sector should show commitment to the realisation of national goals by creating international linkages and interrelationships with other countries so as to improve both the supplier, investor, and customer base (Pillania, 2011, p. 1115). . Iimplementation of an ERP system needs cognitive and practical studies for the responsible public administrators (Liu, 2011, p. 10700). Further, commitment on business process management requires efficient process modelling, execution, and monitoring of all actions taken by each and every stakeholder in the public administration sector.
Enterprise resource planning systems play a very crucial role in enhancing an organisational success. However, the enterprise resource planning systems implemented in government bodies differ from those systems implemented for the private sector (McConmark and Johnson, 2001, p. 88). The main reason for this difference is the nature of processes when it comes to the functionality of ERP systems in the two sectors. Rather than supporting the core processes of the industry, ERP systems in public administration sector backup supporting processes.
The ERP systems in the government sector back up the supporting processes for human resource management, payroll management, inventory, and fixed asset management (Samman and Adam, 2010, p. 1). The public administration uses the strategy of having laws and regulations that go hand in hand with all the supporting processes and ensuring that all the government units use a similar approach to managing all the resources in a firm.
The government sector uses the strategy and principle of government resource planning tool that is applied across all the software market under the ERP systems (Samman and Adam, 2010, p. 8). The strategy of government resource planning is dedicated to ensuring efficient delivery of services and products to the public domain.
The ERP implementation systems in the industry back up the core goals of the business, that is, maximising profits. The industry ensures business process engineering by educating and training the users on the new business processes (Jeston and Nelis, 2008, p. 100). The strategy of training and developing the IT staff on how to use a newly introduces ERP software creates an environment for creativity and innovation which results in improved profitability.
The other strategy used by the private sector while implementing a new ERP software within its operations is change management. Unlike the government sector whereby an employee may maintain a post in a particular area, this is not allowed in the private sector for they aim at raising profitability (Liet et al., 2010, p. 3). Therefore, all the necessary skills and knowledge for monitoring the ERP systems requires improvement failure to which recruitment of qualified personnel is initiated.
ERP system implementation brings changes in an organisation; this means that the government authority should be responsible for impacting changes so as to ensure progress of the set goals (Pourshahid et al., 2009, p. 270). Implementing change management in an ERP system within an agency has various importances which include:
With the implementation of change management in an ERP system of an organisation, employees performance increases and hence higher productivity. Change management reduces the levels or risks attached to the lack of implementing changes in the ERP strategies (Han and Park, 2009, p. 7447). The management should invest in new software ERP that suits the ability of their employees, and this will directly result in high-performance levels. The individual effort to improve and increase the speed of undertaking their responsibilities gets adjusted to the coherent flexibility and adjustability of their ERP system.
A change management team develops and coordinates the implementation of ERP change strategy in all organisational departments. With the introduction of new ETP system software that enables the personnel to multitask by integrating various roles together, this motivates the staff and improves their commitment to offering more for the public sector. Through the delivery of effective change programs, the outcomes are encouraging (Bueno and Salmeron, 2008, p. 523). Therefore, with this increased employee morale, there is an easy transition from the old ERP system software to the newly upgraded system, this ensures cooperation with staff amongst all the departmental units of an organisation be it in the public or the private sector.
Conclusion
The modern management environment has been influenced by the sophistication of new technologies now and then and this makes the government sector together with the private sector take necessary actions in adopting change management processes. Adoption of change management process systems enables the organisations to increase effectiveness and efficiency when it comes to production processes. The ERP systems implementation remains a critical software when it comes to integration of business processes during the functionality and rules administration within any given sector. However, the functionality and applicability of ERP strategies differ between those viable in public sector from those usable in the private organisations. Therefore, both the public and private administration sector should adopt the implementation of the right ERP systems so as to ensure the success of the primary goals and objectives as projected in the annual budgets.
References
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