Implementation Strategy Report For Hershey’s ERP Implementation

Why Hershey’s needs an ERP System

Question:

Discuss about the a Business Case for the Implementation of a Single ERP Component.

The ERP implementation method has been used to identify the requirements for an ERP. The development of the implementation plan maximizes the benefits most efficiently.

The report intends to develop an implementation strategy report to implement the single ERP component. For this, The Hershey Company or Hershey’s in the USA is chosen as a medium seized company for the case study. It is regarded as one of the biggest manufacturers of chocolate in the world (“HOME”, 2017).

The report analyses why Hershey’s requires the ERP system and the initial startup. It has developed the recommendation of the kind of ERP introduced. Then it lists the components needed to be introduced. Then the components are described in the recommendation. Then the future development areas are recommended as the solution gets implemented.

The worst case scenario of Hershey’s turned into a reality as it cut over to about a hundred million IT systems. The challenges of systems and business processes resulted in operational paralysis. This led to a drop in the quarterly profits and stock prices. The implementation team of the company generated a cardinal mistake by sacrificing systems testing for the expediency (“A Case Study on Hershey’s ERP Implementation Failure– Driving successful enterprise software projects”, 2017). Thus the challenges of system integration, processes, critical data and results have stayed undetected till it was too late. Another mistake of textbook implementation was made by the agency in relation to the timing of the project. Hershey’s tried to compress the complicated project of ERP implementation to an unacceptable short timeline.

Hershey’s has needed to change the way the people have been working. The ERP has been helpful for Hershey’s regarding process automation. Without ERP Hershey’s has been devoid of the prudent workflow execution and departmental collaboration. Further ERP has been used to gain the operational efficiency (Ahmad & Cuenca, 2013). Moreover, the ERP solutions have been helping to intensify the internal interactions.

Hershey’s has been facing the issues of inconsistent information around the business. This gives rise to the retention issues adversely affecting the market share and revenues. This is the reason why implementation of ERP failed in the company (Chung, Ahmad & Tang, 2015).  

Further ERP has been helping in better performance measurement. As per as the initial startup is concerned, the following steps are to be kept in mind for Hershey’s.

Cloud based	This indicates that the enterprise solutions must be accessible online.
Scalable	Hershey’s must ensure that the financial and the accounting systems must provide the capability to add the users at any time period (Xu, 2017).
Integrated	Hershey’s must have the scope to integrate the additional systems to the accounting software.
Automatic updates	Hershey’s must assure that their entire          IT department is not utilized. They must concentrate on the growth of their business and turn out efficient rather than needing to hire any IT staff (“What we can learn from the 1999 Hershey’s ERP failure”, 2017).

Components of ERP to be introduced

Getting the support of upper management:

The resources of Hershey’s at the lower level have to tend to not being engaged and educated with the implementation project devoid of any involvement of top level. The executives never require accessing the point to know all the details of single configuration. However, they need to be aware of the challenges that have been resulting delays to the project.

Making the extensive and explicit list of perquisites:

This must be done before the vendors are approached. They must start by carefully defining the scope of the project. Further, the more specific Hershey’s could upfront more detailed the vendors could be in their proposals. It is seen that people have been selecting the ERP by the factors like the price, present technology buzz or the system that has been flashiest (Beijsterveld & Groenendaal, 2016).

However, without any right fit, the organizations are left with the costly customization and the bolted solutions. Hershey’s should see the ERP system that would be specific to the industry. It must have the features and tools that are designed for solving the requirements of the business .

They must not forget any mobile users:

As the mobility develops across the industries, the accessing of the ERP systems from the desktops has been no longer any option.

The components and the reasons to deploy that are discussed below:

Components	Reasons
Production	This has been streamlining the process and purchase cycles. This handles the sales and pre-sales activities of Hershey’s. Further it involves the tracking of stock-to-dock sales order processing cycle. This helps in order scheduling on the tracking and time delivery schedule. The tracking of order is done by the transaction and status reports. Lastly there is the development of the production advice for planning the ERP for the production on the basis of sales orders (Altamony et al., 2016).
Supply Chain Management (SCM)	This includes the developed efficiency around the various departments and the agencies working under the supply chain of Hershey’s. Further it helps in developed customer service for the enhanced customer retention and higher scope of the repetitive business scopes (Anya Ciecierski & Anya Ciecierski, 2017). Moreover, there has been the automation of the workflow for the decreased overhead and the operational costs. Because of this the issues regarding IT has been less likely to generate the bottlenecks for impeding the performance.
Human Resource Management (HR)	The HR module in Hershey’s ERP posses a set of effective features and has been integrating seamlessly with the other modules. The module offers Hershey’s wide scope of solutions for the department. This makes the other departments to get into the particular employee data (Esteves & Pastor, 2016). The module has been covering every function needed in the business practice and is flexible in optimizing the business process sufficiently. This is done by configuring to suit the perquisites of the customers.
Finance	The module of the ERP finance has been integrated tightly to all the needs of business. This contains the material management to the logistics and human resources. The financial module in ERP delivers the financial analysis and functionality reports to Hershey’s for various cost centers and departments (Amini & Sadat Safavi, 2013). Irrespective of the goals of Hershey’s, the financial module of Hershey’s ERP has been working hand-to-hand for improving the bottom-line.

The recommendations of the components are analyzed below:

Components	Recommendations
Production	Proper review of the business strategy, IT strategy, ERP Strategy must be done. This should also include the project scopes and process changes and new systems through applying the appropriate change management techniques and strategies.
Supply Chain Management (SCM)	There must be management in the project sponsorship, escalation of issues, resolution of issues and steering committee. This helps in involving maintaining the support of management and keeping them informed regarding the project (Gavidia, 2016).
Human Resource Management (HR)	The E-HRM could be implemented. This is the implementation and planning application of the IT of Hershey’s. This has been both for supporting and networking the collective or individual actors in their shared doing the HR activities.
Finance	A good estimation could be created for the implementation costs. A tight control of the costs should be kept (Williams, Williams & Morgan, 2013). The costs must not be cut in the training, change management and the project management. Rather a fast implementation of the tools and methods must be considered.

The ERP implementation planning for Hershey’s needs the ERP experts to understand the industry of Hershey’s. They must also know the ERP software proposed and the implementation of that on budget and time. The most important has been to find the experts who possess what that have been taken to assure the organization (Schniederjans & Yadav, 2013). This makes in realizing every possible benefit of the business.

Hershey’s must finalize the business case determine the actual expense of ownership and the design of ERP solution. The gaps between the requirements and the system capabilities must be identified. The custom configuration perquisites must be defined, and the project management of ERP must include the governance framework of the project (Ahmad & Cuenca, 2013). There must also be business process requirements and process reengineering for ERP. The organizational change management must be needed along with the timeline.

Further, the ERP must be integrated with the legacy systems, the cutover and the phasing strategies must be defined. The data migration strategy must be identified, and the resource requirements must be determined both internally and externally (Garg & Agarwal, 2014). The roles and responsibilities for the executive steering committee, ERP vendors, system integrators and the core team must be defined.

Recommendations for successful ERP Implementation in Hershey’s

These steps must be followed by Hershey’s realizing the incredible advantages provided by the systems of ERP software.

Conclusion:

Any company could take necessary lessons from the case of Hershey’s. The lesson learnt from the report is that the business systems and processes are to be testes utilizing the methods designed for simulating the realistic operating scenarios. This also includes the paying of close attention to the ERP scheduling. The above report shows that the ERP has been offering various advantages to The Hershey Company according to functionalities and capabilities. Provided the inter-organizational and intra-organizational benefits supplied by ERP, it provides Hershey’s with a substantial leverage over its other competitors. Further, it is pertinent that Hershey’s has been identifying and working in decreasing and eradicating the non-value added tasks, components and processes in their business. This would take place when they begin to adopt the holistic approach to address the necessities of the enterprise efficiently. This indicates that they would be capable of delivering their services and products with quality, ease and speed. Lastly, Hershey’s must keep in mind that the implementation processes are understood, make the staff training a priority and keep all the people informed of the top down activities.

The recommendations for the future development as the above solution is implemented are described below:

Integrated with Big data:

The ERP solutions must be integrated with the Big data and particularly the wider datasets.

Analysis of data:

The ERP is analyzing and looking the data is silos of the business data. It should not ignore the data from the external world.

The merging of the massive data sets on the social behavior:

This fusion of the datasets in the social acts like Twitter, Facebook and datasets to the various data of the ERP systems could revolutionize the way in which Hershey’s business might take decisions.

The collection of the requirements of business:

The selection of the business perquisites has been aiming to the development of solutions. This has been supporting the activity of the end-customers.

References:

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Ahmad, M. M., & Cuenca, R. P. (2013). Critical success factors for ERP implementation in SMEs. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 29(3), 104-111.

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