Introduction
Organizations have numerous activities that run concurrently. The synchronization of these activities is necessary to enhance their efficiency and effectiveness. Basically, business process management is one of the greatest pillars of success (Nah 2009). Changes in the principles of efficient organizational process management have been drastic. Recent developments in addressing organization ineffectiveness involve using technology to meet the growing needs and responsibilities of organizational members (Carroll 2009). The Emirates NBD Bank has utilized the enterprise resource planning (ERP) as an instrumental tool in enhancing business process effectiveness via an integration system, which is designed to improve the modern office systems in the business environment. This analytical paper shows how the Emirates NBD bank uses the ERP to generate value to foster integration.
The Role of Integration: ERP
Due to unceasing competition, organizational leaders at the Emirates NBD bank are trying to curtail expenditures, augment the quality of their products, provide better customer service, and concentrate on research and development. Groups, rather than individuals, make important decisions at the company through proactive business process management (Gunasekaran 2010). Due to the geographical locations of team members at the Emirates NBD bank, such process is not always possible. Besides, there are several processes that the bank has to run concurrently to improve on efficiency and optimal output. These challenges necessitated the adoption of the ERP system as a strategy for effective business process management.
The ERP is a set of approaches, technology, and software whose primary function lies in using techniques that focus on improving the flow of different functions and decision-making within different departments in the bank. Introducing ERP at the Emirates NBD organization, especially within departmental settings, has contributed significantly to value management and led to a new powerful network that shapes performance values among employees (Nah 2009). The integration of technology-supported system into a collaboration model of the organization has facilitated the prediction of performance and productivity outcomes through the ERP platforms such as webinar and Direct Collaboration Service (Gunasekaran 2010).
These platforms allow members of the Emirates NBD bank to interact using different forms of communication techniques, including the use of direct chats, messaging services, voice calls, and direct video teleconferencing services (Kumar 2011). The Direct Collaboration Services (DCS) is a process management platform powered by the Adobe to connect online information and communication platform. It provides the Emirates NBD bank extensive power to communicate and coordinate its logistics operations across its branches. These platforms allow users from multiple locations to collaborate through virtual networks and allow dispersed groups to interact and participate in role execution (Tomlinson 2010). Lastly, these platforms relay content-rich information from one person to another, therefore, making it possible to record data acquired on performance across different regions that Emirates NBD bank operates in. The ERP tool supports small office to large conference rooms with multiple users, especially in the Middle East operational centers of the Emirates NBD bank (Gunasekaran 2010).
The ERP platforms have become particularly important for the aspects such as leadership, team building, generating new ideas, informed decision-making, employee engagement, and organizational business process at the Emirates NBD bank (Velte, Velte, & Elesenpeter 2008). Before its implementation, most managers used to spend a considerable amount of time on planning rather than the actual tasks to achieve set goals. The ERP system has significant benefits because it reduces losses at the Emirates NBD bank. In addition, being interactive tools of IT, their use in the bank has reaffirmed the concerted efforts that are central in the completion of joint tasks. Through the ERP, managers at the bank are able to create innovative concepts, understand and categorize them, as well as assess them with the help of diverse automated assessment methods (Tomlinson 2010). The managers apply the ERP support system in project assessments, methodological planning, development and evaluation of work flows, group development, and crisis management.
Besides, as part of the ERP, the automated task manager has been applied at the Emirates NBD bank to bring together the thinking processes of all involved logistics managers, thus, creating a participative approach aimed at solving complex tasks. This platform works through inter-playing between software and hardware in which every department owns a workstation. Again, there is a parallel system of work in which the ERP offers contributions in clusters, which means the system can store or collect information under different or similar packages. Finally, the parallel system captures the tasks automatically (Kumar 2011). These benefits have resulted in efficiency in conducting logistical support across the many divisions of the Emirates NBD bank. As part of value system, the ERP support systems offer a plausible and engaging option to the customary face-to-face engagement, and the management finds them beneficial because, without a proper business process management approach deployed, task execution may return zero results, especially when they run concurrently (Velte, Velte, & Elesenpeter 2008).
The main trends and perspectives within the Emirates NBD bank are addition of new models of ERP Oracle System and enhancement of the current ERP Oracle System. The rationale behind enhancement of the current ERP Oracle System at the Emirates NBD bank is to ensure optimal utilization of business intelligence and recruitment models since the organization operates in a very dynamic business environment. Besides, the system is very effective since all the data is central as opposed to other systems. The first metric is the level of returns as compared to previous returns when all other factors are held constant.
The second metric is the level of customer response and business turnover within a specific period. The third metric is the changes in cost and logistics of running the business (Carroll 2009). The principle of lean operations has eliminated all wastes in order to develop a faster operational model, which is more dependable to produce higher quality products and services at the least operational cost. Lean operations are strongly associated with both waste elimination and continuous improvement, which the Emirates NBD bank has perfected with the help of the ERP. The system has ensured that there is a balance between efficiency and sustainability in the bank.
Since growth of collaborative teams is central in enabling organizational effectiveness, the Emirates NBD bank introduced the ERP system to provide new alternatives for cooperating and group decision-making. Aside from enhanced business process management, the ERP positively contributes to human resource management at the bank. This is because the ERP system has the capacity to enhance human resource management through efficient communication strategies, build collaborative teams, and promote teamwork (Velte, Velte, & Elesenpeter 2008). The advantages of the ERP at the Emirates NBD bank are secrecy, parallel contacts, computerized record keeping, improved and more detailed structure, and increased output.
Suggestions for Improvement
There is a need for the organization to improve its current enterprise system module in order to ensure future business sustainability. The following recommendations will go a long way in ensuring that the decision-makers make assessments in the current enterprise system module.
Process management perspective
There is a need for the organization to have strategic business process management office in order to effectively manage its numerous tasks via the current ERP module. Reflectively, the strategic business process management office has a series of benefits such as a centralized database, incorporation of all stakeholders at every level of task execution (Kumar 2011). In addition, the business process management office incorporates the common business processes, irrespective of the task subsidiaries or boundaries. When this recommendation is successfully implemented, the Emirates NBD bank will manage its tasks in a sustainable manner at macro and micro levels (Carroll 2009).
This will go a long way in improving its sustainability and business performance. Besides, it will ensure that expenditure planning is within the expectations of the organization in terms of operation costs. Incorporating technical know-how ensures that the business understands any proposed system and how it works to make the Emirates NBD bank business sustainable. The organization has to create a system for prioritizing the tasks to reap maximum benefits from implementing the proposed improvements (Nah 2009). In addition, the Emirates NBD bank has to consider the duration of each task to minimize interferences with the business activities, especially when the automation process is complex.
Enterprise system modules: ERP Oracle
There is a need for the Emirates NBD bank to incorporate the ERP Oracle in its current management systems to ensure that the future coordination control is effective and controllable. Basically, this module is effective in defining the scope and mechanism of operations. There is a need for the decision-makers to incorporate strategies within the bank to ensure that conflicts and other issues are effectively and timely resolved. Besides, there is a need to develop a program for continuous and constriction training to guarantee full employees support as agents of implementation. In actualizing the program, there is an additional requirement of knowledge redistribution within the management levels (Velte, Velte, & Elesenpeter 2008).
The proposed incorporation of the ERP Oracle will integrate the external and internal flow of relevant information such as customer demands and offer a systematic solution. Besides, the ERP will offer technical support in planning, marketing, and selling the Emirates NBD bank products. In addition, the ERP will make it easy for the management to run the business from a central point. The first consideration in implementing the ERP Oracle would be network configuration (Nah 2009). This is important for the safety of the business in offering online sales. The second consideration would be the nature of technical support. The organization will have to train a new technician team to manage and update the system.
Addition of new models of ERP oracle system such as the Oracle Inventory Management promises the benefits such as a sustainable improvement in the visibility of inventory and substantial reduction in inventory levels. When the two components react, the Emirates NBD bank will hold lesser safety stock as opposed to holding a lot of safety stock. Another system that is instrumental in the ERP Oracle model is the Time Attendance Management System (TAMS) (Velte, Velte, & Elesenpeter 2008). When incorporated in the Oracle system, the model will give the Emirates NBD bank capacity to eliminate the unreported absence, manual calculations, manual reporting, and tracking activities. The TAMS is also known to be instrumental in restricting any unnecessary exceptions, improving the productivity of employee, and effective resource assignment within shorter time schedule (Nah 2009).
In order to create a dynamic organization at the Emirates NBD bank, there is a need to model an environment of free information flow. In this case, the ERP strategy adopted at the Emirates NBD bank will help to address the conflict issue that occurs after regular task tracking through adoption of strategic leadership approach to conflict management (Gunasekaran 2010). At the bank, the proposed system will rely on the synchronization of people, software, hardware, and protocols to ensure that the logistical support channels work flawlessly. The integration of IT Solutions will contribute to the proliferation of much faster and more practical solutions in task execution across different departments. This is because the proposed system, as an important source of enhancing efficiency, provides a solid ground for reconstructing decisions.
Conclusion
In summary, the Emirates NBD bank should implement the above recommendations concurrently to achieve a balanced system of operations control. This will ensure that the business understands any proposed system and how it works to make its activities sustainable. Properly integrated ERP system will minimize the distractions between teams that are working toward execution of concurrent tasks.
Reference List
Carroll, B 2009, Lean performance ERP Project Management: Implementing the Virtual Lean Enterprise, CRC Press, New York, NY.
Gunasekaran, A 2010, Modeling and analysis of Enterprise Information Systems, Ideal Group Inc., Nebraska, Na.
Kumar, P 2011, Enhancing the importance of implementing Green IT measures in the Indian IT industry, University of Bradford Singapore Campus, Bradford, Singapore.
Nah, F 2009, Enterprise resource planning solutions and management, Ideal Group Inc., Nebraska, Na.
Tomlinson, B 2010, Greening through IT: Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability, MIT Press, Massachusetts, Mass.
Velte, TJ, Velte, AT & Elesenpeter, R 2008, Green IT: Reduce your information system’s environmental impact while adding to the bottom line, McGraw Hill, London, UK.