Chapter 12..enterprice resourse planning..case study

How did ERP improve business operations at shell?

The ERP system has helped the company immensely in terms of reducing and streamlining the highly manual process of third party contractors submitting repair information and invoices On average ,there are between 25000 and 4000 service orders handled by these contractors per month on a nationwide basic.



How could extended ERP components help improve business operations at shell?

The contractors had to send Shell Canada monthly summarized invoices that listed maintenance calls the contractors made at a various Shell gas online stations.Each one of these invoices would submit somewhere between 50 and 100 invoices every monthly to Shell Canada.This involved each invoice being reviewed by the appropriate territory manager and then forwarded to the head office for the payment processing.


What advise would  you give Shell if it decided to choose a different ERP software solution?

A very important facility of the ERP systems is that they increase the availability of the information, helping companies to have information in real time to make decisions and accurate prognostics regarding the organization. It is important to mention that ERP systems are a very powerful tool when it comes to processing and organizing financial data. It improves the development of the commercial activity in the short and long term. - See more at: http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/erp/erp-impact-in-organizations.html#sthash.GqrgiGBU.dpuf

A very important facility of the ERP systems is that they increase the availability of the information, helping companies to have information in real time to make decisions and accurate prognostics regarding the organization. It is important to mention that ERP systems are a very powerful tool when it comes to processing and organizing financial data. It improves the development of the commercial activity in the short and long term. - See more at: http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/erp/erp-impact-in-organizations.html#sthash.GqrgiGBU.dpuf

A very important facility of the ERP systems is that they increase the availability of the information, helping companies to have information in real time to make decisions and accurate prognostics regarding the organization. It is important to mention that ERP systems are a very powerful tool when it comes to processing and organizing financial data. It improves the development of the commercial activity in the short and long term. - See more at: http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/erp/erp-impact-in-organizations.html#sthash.GqrgiGBU.dpuf

I think it is a good way to choose a different ERP software solution.It improve the development of commercial activities in the short or long term,


How can integrating SCM,CRM,AND ERP help to improve operations at shell?

All of this can integrated in the operations at shell is  to managing information flows within the supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.With CRM shell managing all aspects of customers relationships with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organizations profitability.ERP can integrating all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single IT systems.so that managers and leaders can make enterprise wide decisions  by viewing enterprise wide information on all business operations.

A very important facility of the ERP systems is that they increase the availability of the information, helping companies to have information in real time to make decisions and accurate prognostics regarding the organization. It is important to mention that ERP systems are a very powerful tool when it comes to processing and organizing financial data. It improves the development of the commercial activity in the short and long term. - See more at: http://www.exforsys.com/tutorials/erp/erp-impact-in-organizations.html#sthash.GqrgiGBU.dpuf

CHAPTER 10....SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT..

1)List and describe the components of a typical supply chain.

Supplier’s Supplier, Supplier, Manufacturer, Distributor, Retailer, Customer,  Customer’s customer.

Define the relationship between decision making and supply chain management.
Supply chain management is the streamlining of a business' supply-side activities to maximize customer value and to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Supply chains cover everything from production, to product development, to the information systems needed to direct these undertakings. SCM enhances decision making. Collecting, analyzing, and distributing transactional information to all relevant parties and  SCM systems help all the different entities in the supply chain work together more effectively. SCM systems provide dynamic holistic views of organizations. The Users can “drill down” into detailed analyses of supply chain activities in a process analogous to DSS. Without SCM systems, organizations would be unable to make accurate and timely decisions regarding their supply chain.Supply chain management (SCM) represents an effort by suppliers to develop and implement supply chains that are as efficient and economical as possible.

Describe the four changes resulting from advances in IT that are driving supply chains.
Visibility:the ability to view all areas up and down the supply chain.Changing supply chain requires a comprehensive strategy buoyed by information technology.

 

Consumer behavior:the consumers has changed the way business complete.Customer will leave if a company does not continually meet their expectations.

 

Competition:supply chain management  software  can be broken down into(1) supply chain planning software and (2)supply chain execution software both increase a company ability to compete.

 

Speed:During the past decade,competition has focused on speed. New forms of serves.telecommunications,wireless applications and software are enabling companies to perform activities that were once never thought possible.

 

 

4)  Summarize  the best practices for implementing a successful supply chain      management system. 

 

 Collect the right information 

 An effective CRM system uses the data it collects to enhance the customer experience in some way, and as a result strengthen the customer-brand bond.  CRM success depends on your ability to carefully consider all of the data available, but collect only that which can be utilized effectively to meet your vision.  Look at the data you’re capturing, or want to capture, and measure that against your goals and expectations.  If it does nothing to enhance the customer relationship, or help you meet one of your goals or provide a metric to quantify your expectations, throw it out. 

Empower your people

 

Effective customer relationship management is almost impossible if your team members don’t have the authority and backing of senior management to make on-the-spot decisions in the interest of better customer relationships and CRM success.  Requiring “approval from above” frustrates both the customer and the employee, and is contrary to the concept of timely customer response.  Train your people on your CRM vision, goals, and expectations, and train them on the software programs as well as effective and complete data collection methods. Then give them the freedom to make decisions on behalf of the organization.  Reward employees who demonstrate customer-focused thinking. 

 

 Use technology to enhance your CRM systems, not replace them 


  A well-functioning CRM system has, at its core, people.  People make the customer relationship work effectively.  Businesses often look to technology as a way to displace staff or collect more data, and in the process, ignore the fact that people are an absolutely essential part of CRM success, and that the technology is only a means to strengthen that success.  Technology should be used to collect and analyze meaningful data, and provide staff with the information needed to engage the customer and build your brand.

Embrace continuous improvement 

Your relationships with customers will continue to grow only if your organization continuously evaluates its CRM systems and finds ways to improve them.  Customers are dynamic, and as such, your CRM program must evolve as well.  You must continuously analyze your data to look for changing trends or patterns in consumers, constantly re-evaluate your vision, goals, and expectations, and find new ways to measure the pulse of your customers if you expect to achieve the highest levels of CRM success.

CHAPTER 11.BUILIDING A CUSTOMER CENTRIC ORGANIZATION-CUSTOMER RELATIOSHIP MANEGEMENT

why is it important for any company to use CRM strategies to manage customer information?

It is important because the firm can analyze it to identify paters and create marketing campaigns and sales promotions for differences customer segments.For example,if a customer buys only at height of the season ,the firm should send a special offer during the off-season .It also provide the better customer service.

can refer to this link

http://sixrevisions.com/project-management/10-tips-for-providing-great-customer-service-to-your-clients/

It also can make call centers more efficient

For example we can call the operator to complaint about the services.

IF the virtual world is the first point of contract between a company and its customers,how might that transform the entire shopping experience?

 Advantages...

1)It is more easy and the conversation can be clear.

2) We get to have data regardless of the time and location. 

3) Higher Speed

For example with 3G technology, you get to enjoy data transmission speed leading up to 2Mbps, considering that you have a phone in stationary mode. It also gives you high degree of connectivity and higher networking, plus resistance to noise. 

disadvantages..

1)high cost in maintenance

2) It gets too hot to handle because it it smooth and we must control it.

                                                                  

                                                                                                                          

Chapter 9..desicion making

Four most common categories of all include:

Expert system...

A good example of application of expert systems in banking area is expert systems for mortgages. Loan departments are interested in expert systems for mortgages because of the growing cost of labor which makes the handling and acceptance of relatively small loans less profitable. They also see in the application of expert systems a possibility for standardized, efficient handling of mortgage loan, and appreciate that for the acceptance of mortgages there are hard and fast rules which do not always exist with other types of loans.
EXPERT SYSTEMS:
One of the largest area of applications of artificial intelligence is in expert systems, or knowledge based systems as they are often known. This type of system seeks to exploit the specialized skills or information held by of a group of people on specific areas. It can be thought of as a computerized consulting service. It can also be called an information guidance system. Such systems are used for prospecting medical diagnosis or as educational aids. They are also used in engineering and manufacture in the control of robots where they inter-relate with vision systems. The initial attempts to apply artificial intelligence to generalized problems made limited progress as we have seen but it was soon realized that more significant progress could be made if the field of interest was restricted.

 http://ict-patana.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+Expert+Systems 


Neutral network

 Attempts to emulate the way the human brain work.Artificial intelligence are composed of interconnecting artificial neurons (programming constructs that mimic the properties of biological neurons). Artificial neural networks may either be used to gain an understanding of biological neural networks, or for solving artificial intelligence problems without necessarily creating a model of a real biological system. The real, biological nervous system is highly complex: artificial neural network algorithms attempt to abstract this complexity and focus on what may hypothetically matter most from an information processing point of view. Good performance (e.g. as measured by good predictive ability, low generalization error), or performance mimicking animal or human error patterns, can then be used as one source of evidence towards supporting the hypothesis that the abstraction really captured something important from the point of view of information processing in the brain. Another incentive for these abstractions is to reduce the amount of computation required to simulate artificial neural networks, so as to allow one to experiment with larger networks and train them on larger data sets.

http://www.cormactech.com/neunet/whatis.html 


example.....

Genetic algorithm

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are adaptive heuristic search algorithm premised on the evolutionary ideas of natural selection and genetic. The basic concept of GAs is designed to simulate processes in natural system necessary for evolution, specifically those that follow the principles first laid down by Charles Darwin of survival of the fittest. As such they represent an intelligent exploitation of a random search within a defined search space to solve a problem.
First pioneered by John Holland in the 60s, Genetic Algorithms has been widely studied, experimented and applied in many fields in engineering worlds. Not only does GAs provide an alternative methods to solving problem, it consistently outperforms other traditional methods in most of the problems link. Many of the real world problems involved finding optimal parameters, which might prove difficult for traditional methods but ideal for GAs. However, because of its outstanding performance in optimisation, GAs have been wrongly regarded as a function optimiser. In fact, there are many ways to view genetic algorithms. Perhaps most users come to GAs looking for a problem solver, but this is a restrictive view [ De Jong ,1993 ] .

example

Finance Applications

Models for tactical asset allocation and international equity strategies have been improved with the use of GAs. They report an 82% improvement in cumulative portfolio value over a passive benchmark model and a 48% improvement over a non-GA model designed to improve over the passive benchmark.
Genetic algorithms are particularly well-suited for financial modelling applications for three reasons:

1. They are payoff driven. Payoffs can be improvements in predictive power or returns over a benchmark. There is an excellent match between the tool and the problems addressed.
2. They are inherently quantitative, and well-suited to parameter optimization (unlike most symbolic machine learning techniques).
3. They are robust, allowing a wide variety of extensions and constraints that cannot be accommodated in traditional methods."

Intelligent agent

It is special purposed knowledge based information system that accomplishes specific tasks on behalf of its users.

Programs, used extensively on the web, that perform tasks such as retrieving and delivering information and automating repetitive tasks. More than 50 companies are currently developing intelligent agent software or services, including Firefly and WiseWire.
Agents are designed to make computing easier. Currently they are used as web browser, news retrieval mechanisms, and shopping assistants. By specifying certain parameters, agents will "search" the Internet and return the results directly back to your PC.
  Push technologyrelies on agents to deliver per-selected information to your desktop. Some intelligent agents are also used as tools to track Web behavior: they can even "watch" as your surf the Net and record how often you visit certain sites. Later, they can be used to automatically download your favorite sites, let you know when your favorite site has been updated, and even tailor specific pages to suit your tastes.


http://groups.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis479/projects/agent/Intelligent_agent.html

Chapter 8...

1.Describe the roles purpose of data warehouse and date marts in an organization.

-The roles of data warehouse is a logical collection of information gathered from many different operational databases that support business analysis and decision-making tasks.The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to aggregate information throughout an organization into a single repository in such a way that employees can make decisions and undertakes business analysis activities.
-data marts-contains a subset of date warehouse information and to distinguish between data warehouses and data marts,think of data warehouse as having a more organizational focus and data marts as having focused information subsets particular to need of given business unit such as finance or production and operations.

2.Compare the multidimensional nature of data warehouse with the two-dimensional nature of databases.

-data base contain information in a series of two dimensional tables which means that you can only ever view two dimensional of information at one time.A relational database contains information in a series of two dimensional tables.A dimension is a particular attribute of information In a database warehouse and data marts information is multidimensional it contains layers of columns and rows.Each layer in a data warehouse or data marts represents information according to an additional dimension.Dimensions could such things as products,promotion,stores,category,region.stock price,date,time and even the weather.The ability to look information from different dimensions can add tremendous business insight.

3.Identify the importance of ensuring the cleanliness of information throughout an organization.

- It maintain high quality data in the data warehouse or a database warehouse or data mart is extremely important.

A process is  that weeds out and fixes or discards inconsistent,incorrect,or incomplete information,contact information in an operational system,standardizingcustomer name from operational system,information cleansing activities and accurate and complete information quality management.

4.Explain the relationship between business intelligence and data warehouse.

-business intelligence is the information that people use to support their decision-making efforts.It a business started automating more and more systems,more and moreinformation become available. 

http://www.informationbuilders.com/business-intelligence 

-data warehouse a logical collection of information- gathered from many different operational databases-that supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks.

 can refer to this....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_warehouse 

-

chapter 7...

1.Describe two primary method of integrating information across multiple database?
   The primary method integrating information across multiple database is a forward integration takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and process.Secondly,a backward integration takes information to all downstream systems and process.
 
2.Describe the benefit of data-driven web site ?

-The benefits of data driven web site is to allow the website owner to make changes any time,a status website requires a programmer to make updates.It useful to when site offers a great deal of information,products,or services.A static website requires a programmer to make updates.This adds an unnecessary layer between the business and its web content,which can lead to misunderstandings and slow turn a round and desired changes.

 3.Define the fundamental concept of the rational database model?

-fundamental concept of rational database model have two types firstly entities and attributes.Entities in the rational database model is the person ,place,thing,transaction or event about which information is stored.Attributes also called fields or columns are characteristic or properties of an entity class.Secondly keys and relationships.

4.Evaluate the advantages of the rational database model?

-Firstly increase flexibility.increased scalability and performance. It database tend to mirror bushiness structures  ad good database can handle changes quickly and easily.It reduced information redundancy.Redundancy is the duplication of information,or storing the same information in multiple places.Besides that, increased information integrity(quality) and increased information security.


http://www.teach-ict.com/as_as_computing/ocr/H447/F453/3_3_9/database_design/miniweb/pg8.htm

5.Compare operational integrity constraints and business-critical integrity constraints?

-Operational integrity constraints are rules that enforce basic and fundamental information-based  constraints and Business-critical integrity constraints are rules that enforce rules vital to an organization success and often require more insight and knowledge than operational integrity constraints.


http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28313/constra.htm

cHApter 5(ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES THAT SUPPORT STRATEGIC INTIATIVES)

Chief Information Officer

The responsible is for overseeing uses of information technology.It like

Serves as the company’s top technology infrastructure manager.Futhermore,Runs the organization’s internal IT operations Works to streamline business processes with technology

Focuses on internal customers (users and business units)Lastly,Collaborates and manages vendors that supply infrastructure solutions

Chief Technology Officer

It responsible for ensuring the throughtput,speed,accuracy,availability and reliability of an organization.

Serves as the company’s top technology architect. Runs the organization’s engineering group and Uses technology to enhance the company’s product offerings Focuses on external customers (buyers).Besides that,Collaborates and manages vendors that supply solutions to enhance the company’s product.It
aligns the company’s product architecture with business priorities.

Chief security officer(cso)

It responsible for ensuring the security of IT systems and developing strategies and IT safeguards against attacks and viruses.

The CSO generally serves as the business leader responsible for the development, implementation and management of the organization’s corporate security vision, strategy and programs. They direct staff in identifying, developing, implementing and maintaining security processes across the organization to reduce risks, respond to incidents, and limit exposure to liability in all areas of financial, physical, and personal risk.

Chief privacy officer(CPO)

It responsible for ensuring the ethical and legal use information within an organization.

For example:

Collaborate with the organization’s IT leader, security officer, human resources department, and legal counsel to ensure full legal compliance of company’s privacy policies, procedures, forms, notices, and materials.

Devise and implement compliance monitoring of all business partners, associates, vendors, and service providers to ensure that privacy requirements are met.

Prepare and deliver privacy training and awareness to all staff members, contractors, interns, and consultants.

Chief knowledge officer(CKO)

It responsible for collecting ,maintaining and distributing the organization's knowledge.

It manage organizational knowledge as a strategic asset to further an organization’s goals. Futhermore,To increase profitability and growth through higher efficiency in knowledge sharing and innovation.Besides that,
To maximize the return on investment in knowledge including people, processes and intellectual capital.Lastly,to enhance customer satisfaction through improved products / services and shorter lead times.