Feasibility study is one of the major undertaking in the project management that helps organizations achieve proposed business solution. There are different types of feasibilities but the most important part in this case is economic feasibility study (Abdullah et al., 2010). In general, feasibilities are being used by organizations to plan business operations, pin point business strengths and weaknesses as well as attract more customers due to increased business efficiency. Organizational project should undergo through several feasibility studies such as technical, operational, economic and ethical. Economic feasibility study is an important aspect as it helps organization assess required project costs, anticipated benefits and risks that are coupled with planned business ventures. An analysis in feasibility is not necessarily rigorous, neither should it be expensive factoring all possible challenges and risks. In this case, feasibility would be of great importance as it will help Raymond increase efficiency in business operations, improve customer satisfaction as well as increase volume of sales (Avgerou, 2010). Important to note is that, to make Maria’s Aquariums business successful, Raymond would be required to adopt an Information System (IS) in to business daily operations. This will make it possible to consolidate all business operations and operational data for ease of decision making.
Technology incorporation in business operations has been one of the major success factors organizations are putting in place. One of the main reason for using Information System in business operations is to increase business operational efficiency, consolidate all the records for ease of decision making and minimize errors in business data that may result to losses. The rationale behind this study is to make Maria’s Aquariums business successful by reducing errors, make it possible for Raymond to manage all branches from headquarters without much travel, eliminate paper work as well as increase profit margin.
Feasibility studies are being used by organizations to plan business operations. In this case, Raymond would require feasibility analysis to come up project costs, ethical or legal implication, time frame analysis, and operational requirements as well as technical project needs (Janssen & Klievink, 2012). In this review, Maria’s Aquariums business projections would focus on economic feasibility study of executing required support projects. The main focus would be project implementation cost benefit analysis.
To understand Maria’s Aquariums needs, project team would be expected to analyze aspects through which some of the similar businesses have been able to make operations more efficient. Implementation of Information Technology in business operations has been found to be the key success factor. In order to make operations simple, organizations have been adopting Information System (IS) in their daily operations. Maria’s Aquariums adoption of IS in its operations would make it possible for Raymond to manage all operations from headquarters as many other businesses have been able to similar business. Learning from other business would be an important aspect as it will help evaluate both challenges and opportunities encountered during IS actualization (Chang et al., 2012). Related search may not be limited to organizations with IS only as this might not give realistic data. Organizations that have not implemented IS systems would be of great importance because they will help identify some of the reasons that might have hindered IS implementation. Organization that run similar IS to the one proposed by Maria’s Aquariums would serve as an example as it will be possible to determine possible scenarios either challenges or opportunities associated with Technological implementation.
In an investment business appraisal, economic evaluation is quite important. It has to put into consideration all factors that are quantifiable, measurable and can be compared with organizational operational monetary value. Economic evaluation is usually considered in conjunction with other project aspects in order to make it viable investment decisions (Wade et al., 2010). The right business investment decision helps organization execute subject project successfully. For Maria’s Aquariums business, the right investment would involve business resources being utilized wisely with a goal of generating future operational benefits. In order for Maria’s Aquariums business to be successful, the expected benefits ought to be favorable when compared to required resources to execute the project.
Assessment of economic feasibility should be prior to business execution and management should have analyzed all project implementation related costs and benefits. Raymond should understand that, all capital investment costs should be considered because they usually affect business evaluation. Basically, all cost estimation is regarded as an intuitive process that makes it possible to predict all associated final results of expenditure in capital investment. It is important for project managers to understand that, it is quite difficult to give an exact estimation of cost and benefits for any project (Mubarak, Al-Mubaraki & Busler, 2010). At the initial stages of project execution, implementation costs should be done adequately as well as have some alternatives for comparison purpose. During implementation of Information Technology (IT) or Information System (IS) project, Raymond should first consider all costs associated with software and hardware. Despite tangible costs, it would be important to consider other intangible costs such as labor. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is one of the most prominent methodology used by managers to evaluate both direct and indirect costs involved in the project implementation. TCO is believed to be a holistic of all IT costs involved during implementation. This is an implication that, all costs have been considered during project estimation for purpose of giving an exact match of the project needs. The following costs should be considered during Information System (IS) project actualization; costs on all hardware related to end users, costs involved in acquisition of operating licenses, deployment costs of both hardware and software, infrastructure installation costs, Costs that are related to security breaches, costs on insurance of the company and training costs (Ahlan & Sukmana, 2014).
Project managers have a variety of choices to use in project cost assessment such as “Net Present Value (NPV) and Discounted Cash Flow Rate of Return” (De-Moor et al., 2015). Project managers are free to use any method of project cost analysis while estimating project monetary value. With variety of methods to choose from, project managers should be able to select the most favorable methodology to use when evaluating monetary value in any project. These methodologies are applicable at various instances as they are dependent on the project undertaking. Project estimation are usually done at present monetary value but benefits would be done using future value. Other economic feasibility methodologies are Return on Investment (ROI) which is believed to be equivalent to individual net cash receipts of the Information System project. Maria’s Aquariums should have an evaluation before investing on any project to make sure actualization of the project provides highest Return on Investment (Steffey & Anantatmula, 2011). Profitability Period (PP) is another method which is used to give an estimate of investments profitability.
Feasibility study has several benefits to an organization which has desire to have the right prediction of expected benefits before committing its resources and time (Nawi, Rahman & Ibrahim, 2011). Since feasibility study provides a clear roadmap of the project before starting its actualization, it is used to provide a picture of the entire project in advance. First, once feasibility has been done, project team is able to have a focus on what is expected at each stage of project implementation. In this case, Maria’s Aquariums project team would be able to determine all project requirements before it can even be started (Pade-Khene, Mallinson & Sewry, 2011). Next, with viable project feasibility study, organizations are able to identify some new hidden project opportunities. These new opportunities can be identified if project team have taken an intensive evaluation of all aspects through which organization would realize maximum benefits. Despite new opportunities being identified, it is still possible to pin point on some project weakness that might limit project implementation efforts. Additionally, feasibility study unveils new business alternatives which can be used to maximize business profits. According to Wade et al. (2010), new business alternative makes it possible to expand business operations by either adding new product brand in to the business or extending business to new locations. Moreover, with viable feasibility study, it is possible to increase chances of business success. It is possible to evaluate many parameters that can enhance business success rate if the right feasibility has been done. Parameter evaluation unveils more business success factors by analyzing each factor’s ability to steer business growth as well as challenges presented by each business operational factor (Thapa & Saebo, 2014). Finally, feasibility study evaluation helps organization to come up with a valid conclusion of undertaking an IT project. In this case, Raymond would be able to understand if Maria’s Aquariums would benefit from IT incorporation in to business operations.
Conclusion
Feasibility study provides an opportunity to an organization to examine project implementation benefits and risks. With proper use of feasibility study, Maria’s Aquariums project implementation would be of great importance. It would be possible to estimate the costs required to implement Information System. Project team would be expected to implement viable project goals by evaluating all avenues through which an organization would benefit from implementation of IT in business operations. Raymond rationale on IT actualization in business operations are; efficiency, consolidation of data for purpose of decision making and increase profit margin. Among all feasibility studies, economic would be of great interest because it focuses on cost benefits analysis as well investment capital required.
Project management is one of the complex undertaking in Information Technology (IT) field. Any project requires problem discovery as well as definitions in order to be able to come up with best solutions (Dossick & Neff, 2011). A problem is usually defined after it has been discovered as this is what results to innovations. Problem discovery is done by evaluating possible areas that can be improved to come up with a more scalable solution. IT projects are quite challenging and coming up with an idea that can solve existing solution require an intensive evaluation. Once a market gap has been identified, the next step is to define the problem for other people to be able to understand it. Problem definition in IT projects should be clear, precise and focused for ease of understanding. For Raymond to come up with successful solution to Maria’s Aquariums business problem, a market gap should be identified and solution be developed to solve the problem (Perrow, 2011). In this case, the problem discovery would be the need to come up with an IT project to solve Raymond need to consolidate all business operations and increase operational efficiency. On the other hand, problem definition would explain all business need to make it simple to analyze and try to get possible solution. There are several ways through which an organization can end up with problem discovery (Pahl & Beitz, 2013). Engaging employees by requesting them to give out their suggestions on possible means that can be used to improve service delivery as well as possible means of implementing these suggestions.
Business problems initiate need for solution which in turn result to innovation. In order for innovation to happen, business need must be in existent and willingness to solve the same problem should be expressed. In this case, Maria’s Aquariums has a business need which requires a solution with immediate effect. Time that Raymond takes on the road travelling from headquarters to individual branches should be of major concern. Similarly, the effort done by Raymond and the staff to consolidate all the data required for decision making should be of importance. To solve this issue, coming up with an information system would be a solution.
The main goal behind development of this problem is to shed light on the process that IT problems are solved in real life situations. Maria’s Aquariums business problem is the main driver that resulted to development of the topic. The focus was to come up with business problem as well as define it precisely in order to be able to come up with most suitable solution. This will make it possible to come up with robust and scalable solution that solves Raymond business problem.
Past review of past ICT project problem discovery and definition will be used to examine how it has been done by various project management team. Problem discovery occurs when a market gap has been identified to solve a specific problem in the market. Once market gap has been identified, a solution has to be sought by the relevant individuals. To solve a problem in the market, it has to be defined precisely to help other people understand the problem. Important to note is that, information technology has been rated among the best drivers of the business in Europe and worldwide. Similarity, investment in technology has resulted to increase in production growth in the industry.
There has been emergency of new technology in the technology industry which gives rise to new solutions to existing market problem. Several innovations have been done but end users have not been aware of such innovations which could be implemented in business operations (Nagy et al., 2011). Some of the business owners are aware of technological innovations which can be incorporated into business operations for business growth. Emerging technology is the business sector can be perceived to be the future of the reality in the world as well as big driver of economy. According to Roztocki & Weistroffer (2010), technological innovations such as Internet of Things (IoT) which makes it possible to expand business to global context. IT integration in to business operations are always spearheaded by the need to solve business problems by offering operational efficiency, ease of decision making and maximize business profit. To make business a success, Raymond would be required to take advantage of innovation so that it is possible to come up with appropriate solution to business needs. In this case, IoT would be one of the major boost to Maria’s Aquariums business operations as it requires real time access to operational data (Brey, 2012). To connect to all branches in real time, IoT would facilitate business operations in an efficient manner.
Emerging Technologies Ethics
Adoption of technology into business operations has been coupled by many problems that originates from its users. In this context, technology can be regarded as business driver but main issues associated with emergency of technology are from users (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2010). To be able to solve most of the issues associated with technology, it is important to apply desirable ethical concerns. Ethical concerns in IT industry are quite diverse and their applications are guided by problem at hand. Some of the ethical concerns in IT industry are; being honesty to other people so as to create trust with customers. The next ethical concern is to use technology for profit gain in the right manner. In the last but not the lease ethical concern is on implementing technology that is in line with state applicable rule and regulations. Before implementing technology into the business, Raymond would be required to check on some raft of changes (Von-Schomberg, 2013). These changes include required technological expertise from existing work force, the benefits business operations would gain from its implementation, cost of implementing the solution and its maintenance as required in business sector to guarantee operational security to Maria’s Aquariums business and others. Problem discovery should be ethical in nature so that organizations can benefit from innovation. If required innovation would not be ethical and its operations are not enforced by the law, employees might take advantage of the system loopholes to manipulate technology for their own private gains.
Technological implementation requires essential ethical concerns if realistic benefits have to be realized. Failure to apply ethical concerns in emerging technology in the business operations has resulted to some inappropriate use of technology. Instead of using technology for business success, it has been used to bring down some of the businesses. If technology application goes unmonitored, it becomes quite easy for it to be compromised by dishonesty system users (Newman et al., 2012). Raymond should be aware of any ethical challenges that are associated with technological implementation. For Maria’s Aquariums business to benefit from IT implementation, it is important for all stakeholders to understand that unless ethical concerns are well implemented, they can be used by dishonesty system users to bring down an organization.
Problem discovery are usually faced by issues due to procedures organization use to initiate creativity. An organization can either inhibit r encourage creativity by its mode of administration. Creativity is usually engineered from employees by creating enabling environment and rewarding those who come up with solutions to organizational problems (Lucivero, Swierstra & Boenink, 2011). Despite being rewarded, making innovators part of the solution in long term encourages employees to take time looking for solution. If such innovation issues are not addressed properly, innovation would be great deal from employees. Similarly, problem definition is meant to put problem statement in a precise manner to make it simple and easy to understand. If problem is not clearly defined, it becomes difficult to understand as well as get suitable solution.
The first step is to create an enabling environment where top-level management opens room to all managers to present ways of improving organizational operations. On the same note, managers relays the same message to their juniors (Wheatley, 2011). Through this channel, creativity penetrate to all levels in the organization. Additionally, it is believed that problem discovery takes two forms; disruptive in that, organizational processes should not be treated the best because it is obvious there some other best practices compared to the one run by the organization. The second form is deliberate which works on basis of policy definitions. It is believed that organizational service quality should not be the same as it was 5 years back due to change in technology and customer satisfaction requirements (Hubka & Eder, 2012). With this approach, innovation should be open to all people as there is no level where it is less desirable.
Problem discovery is the process of coming up with market gap that has not been filled by already existing solutions. Raymond problem should be converted into solution by collecting all the requirements from the business need analysis. It is important for Raymond to involve all employees in order to collect all system requirements that proposed solution should have. Once requirements have been collected, problem definition should be reviewed to make sure it has been addressed completely. Defining IT problem requires a basic understanding of how solution should be structured so as to capture all the needs. Raymond need to understand that, technology incorporation into business operations are coupled with many challenges. These challenges include; luck of skilled workforce to run the new systems, higher costs of installation and maintenance as well as cyber security issues. With these issues in real life, ethical concerns must be addressed to make sure all system users are aware of emerging technology ethical concerns and their application in the industry.
Information Technology management incorporates several tools and steps that should be coordinated appropriately to make execution a success (De-Bakker, Boonstra & Wortmann, 2010). Several tools and personal such as project charter, work breakdown structure and experienced project manager are quite essential requirements in project management. In order to execute project within the given time frame, project team should work within stipulated timeline to avoid project delivery delays. Similarly, project team and manager should define project precisely and have all the requirements ready to avoid project creep while actualizing the project. According to Tadeu et al. (2011), to minimize the rate of IT project failure, Project Management Office (PMO) has been developed and adopted by many project managers with aim of standardizing project management skills. The PMO helps project team to have required consistency in several projects as well as reporting. In this regard, PMO is very important aspect on daily lives of a project manager as it offers required planning to minimize project failure cases. In its maturity stage, PMO should have several attributes which are broadly categorized into clear governance and project responsibilities, well defined project execution methodology, project operational modules involving procedures, outlined communication plan, desirable quality measures such as sigma six, business growth plan and skills development commitment (Bernroider & Ivanov, 2011).
Initially, there were no specialized IT project managers as such projects relied heavily on project managers from other disciplines. If they did not want to use managers from other disciplines, project team would just select any person to serve as project manager. Once selected, the project manager would be given all required resources and a time frame to deliver the project (Pansini, Terzieva & Morabito, 2014). Project management stages evolved out of the need to fill all the needs of a project manager. Later, it was discovered that, there was high demands of project management skills with aim of fostering required project consistency. The birth of PMO come up from organizational need to make sure that projects are adequately planned and executed accordingly.
Rationale
The study of the project management has been guided by the need to understand the skills required by project managers as well as diversity of project management concepts. Additionally, many organizations have been recording project failure, as a result there is need to analyze reasons for such failure. It has been found that, out of ten projects, three of them would actually fail. In this paper, possible project success criteria would addressed and factors to consider in order to understand if PMO shows features of a mature organization.
The literature would focus on the need of PMO in the management of organizational management. An analysis on use of PMO would be done as well as importance of project management skills in planning and execution of IT projects. In the review, the following aspects would be considered; the maturity of project management office and its different levels of functionality, characteristics of a mature PMO and critical success factors that influence implementation of any project in an organization such as Maria’s Aquariums.
The interaction between Program Management Office and Capacity Maturity Model (PMO-CMM) has been proposed to provide a general framework required to improve competencies in project management. It is believed that, PMO can go through five levels classified as; initial, stable, defined level, managed and incorporated level (Monteiro, Santos & Varajao, 2016). With several models of PMO, OPM3 is one of the models which has been gaining popularity due its standard methodology involving; knowledge basis for best practices, evaluation to done in terms of questions to all best practices and increased measurable which are coupled with best project management practices. OPM3 could be used as a tool to provide guidance to Maria’s Aquariums business project management maturity process. Project management is usually regarded to be a systematic process which is supposed to help organizations achieve its set goals (Tasic, 2014). The OPM concepts are majorly based on correlation that exist between portfolio management, project management and general project management. A slightly different focus can be taken from PMO maturity in reference to workflow perspective. In regard to context of work handled by PMO, its initial stages of work handles normal projects which translates to oversee projects as it matures and at its final stages it manages portfolio.
Characteristics of Mature PMO
PMO would be regarded as efficient and mature if it can manage both its internal operations as well as provide desirable business value when it comes to portfolio management. Where efficiency in either its PMO or portfolio operations are not guaranteed, PMO can be considered to add any value in organizational project management. The next aspect of PMO is being able to execute all projects as required by project stakeholders. In this regard, project should be completed on time, within the set budget as well as deliver desirable results that meets customer needs. For PMO to get into such performance status, some requirements such as an outlined organizational structure, leadership strategies and culture should be accorded. All the PMO attributes are usually associated to these four criterion; operations, metrics, people and strategy.
There are several factors that contribute greatly to either failure of success of any project in an organization. Some of these success factors are; applied methods which are used in management of IT projects (Lindner & Wald, 2011). Methods applied in project management are some of the key determinants that greatly affect performance and effectiveness of any project execution. Delphi method in project management helps organization to focus on risk identification that might hinder project success. Once possible risks are noted, both project manager and team are able to divert or minimize all the risks in order to increase chances of project completion. Project management in IT can be classified into high tech and low tech depending on the complexity of the project. In this context, project success factors are not country based as many used to believe. The next success factor is the people who take part in project implementation. Some of the people involved in project actualization are customers, project managers, suppliers and senior management in an organization. According to Yeoh & Koronios (2010), for a project to be successful, it is important to have skilled team members, knowledgeable project manager and receive required support from organizational management such as Raymond. Similarly, there is need for accountability on all aspects from project stakeholders as well as team work in order to increase capacity building among project stakeholders.
The last project success factor is entire based on specific organizational context as this was witnessed on cases where organizations started managing complex projects. All organizational units should coordinate freely to facilitate required project success. The other context is closely linked to the market an organization offers its services. These market success factors are; desirable project environment which has great influence on the other factors such as level of skills required in the project, laws and regulations put in place by project leaders to enforce execution standards, data collection methodologies in requirements analysis, entire project or sections prioritization and data requirements to make references from past projects (Yang, Huang & Wu, 2011). In this regard, it is important for project managers to understand that, organizational context can greatly affect other project success factors such as people involved as well as resources required to implement he project.
Importance of project management in IT
Every organization aspires to have a successful project implementation. In this regard, Maria’s Aquariums business would not be an exception. Some of the reasons that make project management crucial are; first, project are generally known to be very chaotic and the main goal of an organization having experienced project team is to minimize these problems (Mir & Pinnington, 2014). In project management, all actualization plans are set to facilitate successful project implementation. In this case, Raymond should have all parameters set in place to facilitate IT implementation into the business. Next, project management require a good planning and if it not set, project success would be a main challenge (Ajmal, Helo & Kekale, 2010). Raymond project team would be able to provide clear project timeline with help of PMO. Thirdly, project management is quite important as it helps project team to control implementation costs as well as unexpected changes. Basically, project execution is resource intensive and this should be planned in advance to minimize risks of overrunning the budget. Finally, poor project planning definitely results to project creep which occurs due to additional requirements down project execution. Project requirements analysis and specifications should be done completely and in a precise manner (Meskendahl, 2010). Failure to which project creep should occur, hence project implementation delay.
Conclusion
Information Technology project execution has proved to be very challenging from analysis done from either government or private project actualization. Without proper IT project management team, Maria’s Aquariums IT implementation strategy would be actuality in verge of failing. Due to rate at which IT projects have failed, organizations have been trying to come up PMO in order to help project leaders plan and schedule their team in advance. To minimize chances of IT implementation failure, Maria’s Aquariums should have a clear defined plan on its requirements, costs estimates and timeline. An analysis shows that, PMO has several levels which can be used to categorize the complexity of project being undertaken. Having understood how IT projects are challenging to maintain, it would be important for Maria’s Aquariums project leader to make use of PMO. Adoption of PMO would help Raymond and entire project team execute their duties accordingly, plan for resources as well as required time to execute its project successfully. Finally, project leader would be expected to have relevant skills and knowledge to manage projects, incorporate the right people and adopt the right methodologies during project actualization.
Topic Four: ICT in Enterprise Resource Planning Projects
Introduction
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is management software used in managing business processes to facilitate organizations with in its use of customizable integrated application (Tobie, Etoundi & Zoa, 2016). It is highly used because it gives organization an opportunity to automate all office processes including back operations that makes use of technology. ERP is usually an enterprise applications designed specifically to support both minor and major operations such as data extraction and analysis. Major ERP modules are; product planning module, product sourcing, control of organizational control and marketing among others. The difference between an ERP system and other stand-alone system is notable on the mode through which ERP system accesses its information from database (Chang et al., 2012). ERP system can either be cloud based, mixes or a hybrid system depending on the need of the organization. On the same note, ERP systems are believed to go an extra mile in offering upcoming IT capabilities in field of project as well as business management. Being an integrated application that mainly targets big projects, organizations are far taking advantages of ERP to spearhead business success in the market.
Maria’s Aquariums ERP adoption
According to Law, Chen & Wu (2010), Information Technology Implementation is highly regarded to offer competitive and operational advantage in an organization. ERP implementation of in Maria’s Aquariums business can be believed to offer solution to operational issue that have been facing organizational operations. ERP is accessible from any part of the world and at any time of the day. Maria’s Aquariums implementation of ERP would make it possible for Raymond to implement centralized business operational strategy. In this case, Raymond would not be required to travel from time to time to all business braches to collect daily progress as well as check on supplies (Li, 2011). Raymond would be able to make head office the area of operations as it would be possible to monitor stock from each branch and re-order relevant stock on time. This would be made possible by real time monitoring of stock flow.
Moreover, it would be quite possible for Maria’s Aquariums business to increase profit margin by reducing number of employees who have been managing operations such as collection of stock flow from various branches. The main reason for adoption of ERP in Maria’s Aquariums business operations is its diversity in managing various organizational development programs (Rajendran & Elangovan, 2012). On top of this, ERP presents a real life scenario of solving some of the issues facing Maria’s Aquariums operations such as centralizing all business operations though distributed on different locations. Finally, ERP ability to facilitate real time streaming of data makes it possible to manage business operations with actual data (Chang et al., 2012). This enhances decision making accuracy, hence increasing chances of business success. It is definite that every decision taken has its consequences and these specific one cannot be an exception. Some of the consequences are; cybersecurity challenges as Maria’s Aquariums would be required to focus on measures to protect its operational privacy. Business operation privacy is very important because it prevents disclosure of business secrecy. The second consequence would be on resources and workforce required to run proposed technology. This is because most of organizations have had successful implementation of IT but its operational efficiency has been hindered by lack of resource and skilled workforce (Li, 2011).
Literature Review
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) in many organizations are regarded to present realistic challenges in managing them, time intensive, expensive and coupled with many risks that may make it fail. Most of the ERP’s are considered risky due to their complex nature when it comes to strategic management, technical aspects required as well as operational issues encountered (Dezdar & Ainin, 2011). It is obvious that, managing organization through ERP has been coupled by several aspects such as inflation and failure by organizational management to consider risk mitigation strategies in an organization.
ERP implementation
There are several phases of ERP implementation in an organizational operations. In its implementation, organization must consider several issues that are coupled with such technological changes (Velcu, 2010). Before an organization can decide to make use of ERP into its operations, several checks are required to make sure organization is ready to adopt required technology in to operation. ERP adoption would be determined by factors such as availability of skilled workforce to spearhead required technological and operational changes. Other success factors are; acquisition costs, planned organizational changes as well as working business environment. Business environment is one of the major aspect that contribute to adoption of ERP by prospective organization. According to Upadhyay, Jahanyan & Dan (2011), in any business environment, competition has been the major problem facing organization and each has been trying to outdo each other through various techniques such as adopting the right technology.
Once required technology such as been decided and planned for adoption, organizations takes the next step of acquiring the technology. Acquisition step involves a rigorous step commonly known as product search which and selection (Schniederjans & Yadav, 2013). If Maria’s Aquariums business would be in a good position to adopt ERP, Raymond would be required to select suitable ERP package out of the many existing ones. The adoption of an ERP would be guided by its reliability in by users, the industrial knowledge required to operate subject ERP, available product service as well as available support, ERP compatibility with other systems and affordability. Users’ acceptance is the next aspect that an organization should focus on when planning to implement ERP in an organization. Some of the factors that influence system user acceptance are; altitude projected towards an ERP by any group of stakeholders. If specific group of stakeholders have a negative attitude toward an ERP, it would be very challenging for them to realize maximum benefits out of it (Nour & Mouakket, 2013). In this regard, Maria’s Aquariums business stakeholders should have positive attitude towards ERP adoption as well as its success factors.
Success factors on implementation of ERP differ from locations. A good example can be deduced from developing countries where ERP success has been faced by many challenges compared with developed one (Upadhyay, Jahanyan & Dan, 2011). These success factors are; national context which defines rules of IT implementation in a specific state. Next aspect is organizational context in which the ERP is being used to manage both organizational operations and projects implementation. The third factor is ERP system context which explains use of the application in management of projects as well as internal operations (Tobie, Etoundi & Zoa, 2016). The last aspect is External Enterprise Context which explains other forces from outside the Maria’s Aquariums business operations that may hinder implementation of ERP technology in business operations. It is important for Raymond to evaluate the use and extend to which Maria Aquariums business would be using ERP technology to enhance daily business operations. Many of the studies have focused on the ERP success factors leaving failure factors untouched. In this case, before Raymond starts implementation of ERP in an organization. In this regard, it would be possible for Raymond to be careful when on note some of the aspects that may contribute to ERP implementation failure (Kale, Banwait & Laroiya, 2010). Some of ERP failure factors are; inadequate financial allocation which makes it difficult to get required resources to use in project implementation. The next factor contributing to ERP implementation failure is selection of unskilled project team which makes it challenging to run business operations successfully.
There has been slow adoption of ERP from past decades but of recently, new technological trends have been witnessed resulting to change of focus. Technological trends witnessed so far affects ERP growth and adoption in the market (Nour & Mouakket, 2013). First, mobile ERP have been developed because organizational executive as well as employees need to access real time data irrespective of location of accessing the same information. There is no doubts that organizations have every reason to embrace mobile ERP adoption when it comes to its ability to generate reports, dashboard presentation of menus and ease of using key business processes. The next notable trend is on ERP based on cloud connectivity as it has been growing steadily for some time although some of the Enterprise Resource Planning have not been willing to adopt cloud based ERP (Zhu et al., 2010). Adoption of ERP and its resistance have been dying with time as a result of benefits witnessed from organizations that have already adopted its use. Additionally, social media related ERP has created much reactions from various users as there has been questions on its importance in the market. There has been much debate on the advantages of adding social media ERP package as some organizational executive feel it is not worthy while others appreciate its integration. Finally, there is two-tier ERP which its developers attempted to introduce all in one Enterprise Resource Planning with aim of factoring all organizational operations (Chang et al., 2012). This has not been adopted completely as there are some failures that have been associated with an inclusive ERP.
Conclusion
Technology implementation in the organizational operations has been one of the major challenge in today’s business world. In this case, Maria’s Aquariums business should be ready with all required resources to facilitate adoption and implementation of ERP in daily operations. Having done business evaluation on the context ERP technology, Raymond would be very happy to have all business operations centralized at headquarters. Centralized business management would offer Raymond an opportunity to focus on development aspects that offers Maria’s Aquariums business competitive advantage in the market. ERP implementation has been facing many implementation challenges which result to either successful implementation or failure. In this regard, it is important for Raymond project team to understand all success and failure factors in order to increase chances of having successful ERP implementation
In today’s business world, data has become an important tool in decision making and its application in gaining competitive advantage in the market is of great importance (Lo, Stalcup & Lee, 2010). Customer relationship is one of the important aspect in business operations and its processes need to be digitized to increase customer efficiency. In this regard, Information Technology (IT) adoption should be given the highest priority if efficient and smooth customer relation should be maintained. To manage existing and potential customer relationship, organizations such as Maria’s Aquariums business need to adopt Customer Relationship Management (CRM). This is one of the best technologies in use by firms to manage maintain warm relationship as well as required interactions with both existing and potential customers (Sin-Tan et al., 2010). With CRM systems, organizations are able to establish and maintain steady connections to all its stakeholders, streamline its operational processes as well as improve organizational profit margin. It is obvious that, CRM cannot operate as a separate entity from IT because it makes operation of CRM realistic by providing real time access to required information and responses from both customers and service provider. In this regard, it is important for Raymond as a manager to understand that, CRM is an important tool that can help increase business operational efficiency as well as establish customers’ relationship (Kowalkowski, Kindstrom & Gebauer, 2013). Through use of CRM, it would be possible to understand customer needs and level of their satisfaction from the services offered by Maria’s Aquariums business.
In order to be able to solve customer relationship issues as well as attract more customers to be consumers of the product, organizations should focus on CRM adoption (Nejatian et al., 2011). In this regard, Maria’s Aquariums business need can make use of CRM to increase operational efficiency by capturing customers’ need and satisfying them accordingly. According to Alshawi, Missi & Irani (2011), once customers are adequately met, there are higher chances that customers would come for the same service again. It would be important for Maria’s Aquariums business to have a CRM module that allows customer to share their opinion on services offered. This would help organizational management to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery to customers. From the collected feedback, organizational management would be able to determine the level of customer satisfaction and make improvements. Evaluation of customer satisfaction would be done through use of the same CRM and this would make it possible to quantify the accuracy of the data. The main reasons for choosing CRM to improve organizational and customers’ relationship is its ability to collect required feedback (Soltani & Navimipour, 2016). Customers’ response would be of great importance, being positive or negative. Once an analysis has been done, it would be possible for Raymond to make any necessary recommendations. Some of the shortcomings associated with choice of using CRM in satisfying customer need increase in cost of operations because experts in data analysis and customer relation would be required. Considering benefits that an organization would get from improved customer relation, it would be important for Maria’s Aquariums to adopt CRM.
Literature Review on CRM
This review focus on some strategies organization such as Maria’s Aquariums business can implement to maintain smooth relationship with its customers. With technological innovation available, it is possible to enhance customer interaction through use of CRM. This can be done by adopting CRM systems and incorporating technology in order to make customer interaction a success (Nejatian et al., 2011). Throughout the study, it would be possible to highlight some of the issues that an organization should factor out if CRM would be of importance to the subject organization.
CRM is an ideal business strategy used by organizations to perform an integration of technology, business processes and people with aim of maximizing both existing and potential customer relationship (Awasthi & Sangle, 2012). Customer relationship has been characterized by some philosophies required in management which are termed to be a complete orientation of the subject organization towards all its customers’. CRM has been regarded as highly dynamic and business should be in a good position to adopt some desirable approaches in a proactive manner while making it possible to devise required operational programs with aim of being competitive in the industry. In this case, Maria’s Aquariums business need to come up with proactive business operational strategy in order to attract and maintain highest level of customer satisfaction (Lo, Stalcup & Lee, 2010). It is obvious that, increase in customer satisfaction results to customer loyalty and repetitive consumption of the services. Customer purchase of the services and satisfaction cannot be quantified by only one time consumption of the product as this is not enough to engage that specific customer for long term relationship. The Maria’s Aquariums business goal should be to establish existing long term customer relationship and try to learn each customer’s expectations in order to be able to maintain long term customer loyalty. Important to note is that, any organization that does not align to this operational strategy finds it difficult to maintain its market share as well as growth prospective (Nejatian et al., 2011).
Success factors of CRM
Successful implementation of CRM is dependent on some factors during actualization. First, noting CRM to be a resource intensive undertaking, sponsorship by various organizations is of great importance. This is an indication that organization should have a clear defined objectives of implementing CRM in its operations. In this case, implementation of CRM in Maria’s Aquariums business should have a full support from Raymond and the entire executive team (Nejatian et al., 2011). Next, the approach adopted by the project team to implement CRM is of great importance on its success. Project team should prioritize intensive analysis and planning at early stages of project life cycle in order to attack its implementation with the right approach that guarantees success. The third factor is on the data that makes CRM offer its real time operations. Many organizations running CRM do not consider its operational data as most important but in reality, it cannot be underestimated. Careful consideration of data can only be done if Maria’s Aquariums business would be able to install and maintain it appropriately. Finally, Soltani & Navimipour (2016) argues that the right technology required to support and run CRM should be adopted by the organization. Implementation of the right technology in CRM would be dependent on the CRM platform and ability to customize it to suite specific organizational need and organizational decision to build its own CRM.
Importance of CRM
Modern business operations are dependent on modern strategies in order to be able to withstand industrial competition and pressure. To be able to adopt CRM changes swiftly, organization need to make use of Process Business Management (Nguyen & Waring, 2013). Some of the benefits realizable from CRM are; it has tools that makes it possible for an organization such as Maria’s Aquariums to process, model and monitor project execution as well as maintenance. Additionally, CRM provides capability of sharing information easily across the company at any time. Implementation of CRM in Maria’s Aquariums business would grant an opportunity to all parties to communicate effectively. Further, it would be possible to analyze and generate operational reports on daily performance of the organization. Besides, it would be possible for project team, customers and executive to collaborate effectively without facing normal communication issues. Finally, CRM has been proved to be secure and free from interruption, it is quite scalable and it (Reddick, 2011) can be accessed from mobile phones.
Trends in CRM
Business solution are usually sought to solve business existing problems and CRM cannot be an exception. It started as Personal Information Manager (PIM) and due to technological advancement and industrial growth in needs, more features have been coming up over time (Pedron et al., 2016). Its development went through several stages such as PIM through Contact management system to Sales Force automation system and currently it CRM. Important to understand is that, everything is being driven by technology which ranges from simple user friendly interface to complex database management systems that offers real time data to both organization and clients. Required data is usually collected from several sources provided it would be considered to be valid. Once data is collected, it is analyzed and presented through several tools for use in decision making by the management. As a result of technological advancements and adoption of smartphones, many organizations that makes use CRM are availing package to sales executives (Marolt, Pucihar & Zimmermann, 2015). In this regard, Maria’s Aquariums business cannot be an exception to adoption of CRM if it will help in satisfying customer needs. Lastly, the future advances of CRM would is expected to come up higher technological implementation procedures and low cost of maintenance. It is highly presumed that the awaited new version of CRM would incorporate features such as speech recognition and VOIP technology.
Conclusion
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been growing steadily because of information need to maintain customers. To establish good relationship with organizational customers and suppliers, there is need to monitor their level of satisfaction as they deal transact with specific firm. CRM and its associated technology has been implemented by firms in a bid to capture customer needs as well as meet their demands. In order to meet all customer needs, CRM supported by smartphones have been developed. Similarly, organizations are using CRM to manage large projects that have been quite complex to handle without technology. During project implementation, project stakeholders are able to collaborate easily and at any time of the day. Adoption of CRM in business operations offers capability to maintain all required operational procedures in order to make sure project actualization is successful without any issues.
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