Introduction
The main aim of this particular paper is to look at the various ways in which SAP has been installed into the management system of Dupont. The paper encompasses the various improvements which the SAP has brought to DuPont. These have been in terms of the tremendous reduction in costs of paperwork as there are none needed with the installation of SAP. Due to the high complexity of the managerial activities required at some of the clients being served by SAP due to the high number of products they produce and the high number of clientele they have to deal with, there has been a considerable increase in the efficiency of how these activities are being carried out by these organizations after the installation of the SAP.
Executive Summary on SAP
SAP’s definition of business software is that it encompasses enterprise resource planning and other applications of similar nature like for managing chain supply, for managing customer relations, managing a company’s new product life cycle, and also for managing the relations of a company and its suppliers.
Based at Waldorf in Germany, SAP has established itself as the software producing company with the widest international market coverage. With a staff of workers in sales and software development adding up to more than 51,800, it has spread its branches in 50 plus countries internationally.
SAP aims at availing their products worldwide and it has also established labs in strategic countries as such in the United States, Bulgaria, China, Canada, India, and Hungary. Despite this it is able to carry out its operations at one place but have a global organization.
SAP research is dedicated to improving the product portfolio as it looks for and model the new IT styles. SAP Ventures is for investing capital in new organizations with new products and through this it is able to remain at the top of the industry.
A big company that has huge data to manage using an all-inclusive Enterprise Resource Planning suite will definitely face hurdles on making decisions when they are preparing to install new applications for business. To establish their viability for use in business, it is necessary to test the applications. This can be done either using real databases which are too big, or mock databases which just aren’t pragmatic. Since there is no better testing method, many organizations have ended up with projects abortions, release delays and disproportionate storage and managerial needs.
SAP has established itself as the best provider of ERP suite and also the most reliable testing techniques which has made many firms have faith in their products, most notably DuPont’s Chemical Solutions Enterprise. (DCSE).
DuPont had a problem of changing over the business processes it was using to the better one in the other DuPont SAP installations and therefore it planned to install the SAP without having any losses of orders or halting its systems. In this case SAP employed techniques for organizational change which included the DuPont business people into the procedure and also made a highly meticulous changing over procedure ensuring no data loss and it required high level of user involvement. To some extent, SAP imitated a large amount of its strategies from other departments. It had to increase the number of modules and this closed the gap between the manufacturing and other systems. It was not an easy task as this posed a direct effect to the factory system so it had to come up with proper ways which would ensure that this does not happen. With very efficient and dedicated personnel, DCSE was very committed to ensuring that none of its customers would complain of a slowed down order and that none would deny them one.
Each of its personnel was given a detailed outline of the duties he is required to perform including working overtime even during weekends. They cited all the possible outcomes of a shutdown and were able to enter all the orders into SAP. Since SAP rolled out in 2005, DCSE has experienced large amounts of profits and has not had to change any of the processes that were involved. DCSE has managed to expand more and this has enabled it to receive an increase in the number of its customers and the orders that it sells. In ensuring achievement of the set objectives, SAP employs a sensible amount of linked business activities which includes merits such as:
- Running your business according to your specified objectives and set rules.
- Participate in any arising opportunity independently.
- Attain double goals by ensuring integration between labor and the general business plans.
- Get the right people for the labor force you require.
In ensuring improvement in the amount of output/production and future plans of the business, SAP provides proper working and greater output both in your business and even outside. SAP also ensures less expense by increasing mobility in the set objectives and standards of the business enterprise and this enables integration in a large company.
SAP enables one to perfectly utilize the SAP Net Weaver platform’s latest open, majorly relies on the internet to link your daily activities. In reducing risks, SAP responds positively to most of the problems we face in our companies. It is also recognized worldwide as the best partner in more than twenty five industries. SAP favors corporate governance and also promotes financial management through encouraging risk management and raising profit levels.
Through Information Technology, SAP is able to link business activities to a great level. It is able to minimize expenses through the linking process and the want to include the use of third party software. One is also able to incur large amounts of profits and do away with loans. SAP gives the ability to analyze and know how you can pay your employees depending on their abilities and the rate of their work.
The merits that DCSE had when it switched over to the SAP installation was that it had a comprehensive methodology and established a configuration inventory with technical objectives which can be assessed by DCSE, only it was difficult aligning the business processes and SAP solution.
In as much as DCSE has a complex arrangement for its many customers and needs a good system for managing it numerous chemical productions and sales, with an insatiable demand for its products in the market, it was challenging changing over to the new system from the old one without stopping the manufacturing systems at DCSE or losing any order.
For the changeover CSC employed complex analysis techniques to review the likely problem areas and after the SAP end-users as DCSE had given what they would need from the system, and took into account the mannerisms which would affect the organization of the users and needed to be looked into more carefully by DuPont and CSC. The concerns of the workers about the use and utilization of the SAP were addressed by the management and their acceptability of the new system was higher. This kind of analysis which encompasses the participation of the high level managers and the subordinates yield results as they come across the problems which are then eliminated.
The major gains in installing SAP ERP
The SAP ERP has a number of benefits which an organization will realize when the company changes over to the SAP ERP which the company did not have initially.
- There will be better alignment of stratagem and processes thus the running of the company will be based on planning and strategies at the same time being able to get the timely and relevant information for solving problems at the early stages.
- When a company has information it can be able to aggressively chase business opportunities.
- The company can be able thus to attain its goals as it realigns its staff needs with the goals of the company.
- When using it the business will be able to employ the most qualified professionals for the right tasks thus ensuring everything is done timely.
The use of the SAP ERP helps to increase the level of productivity of a company and enables it to forecast. This is important for increasing the efficiency of dealings within the company and also when dealing with others since the management has the information for analyzing the organizations capability.
SAP ERP makes a company flexible and therefore able to reduce the costs it incurs for running. This can be achieved by employing the enterprise services architecture to make the functions more standardized and thus increase its efficiency. Apart from this, the company’s ability to collaborate with other businesses is also enhanced thus enabling it to broaden its dealings.
- There is great reduction of adversity for the company since the SAP ERP has been subjected to continuous improvement over the years as it solves various problems for numerous organizations in a range of widely spread industries. This has enabled it to get the necessary experience for dealing with a wide variety of situations.
- The finance and accounts functions available on the SAP ERP enables the management to have a continuum analysis of the business thus there is better financial administration and control enabling the company to control adversity.
- The organization will be able to get the most out of the IT it has installed as it amalgamate the different processes for management in the business and does away with extra costs for unnecessary software and eventually these will result into better cash flow and reduced need for loans for financing the business activities.
- Through the use of SA ERP the organization is able to maintain its best-skilled workers as it helps to distinguish the worker’s career paths and also align their pay with their level of capability effort in the work.
- The SAP ERP has the capability of availing to the management all the necessary information about the organization which can be used for managerial purposes.
Organizational Structure
The SAP has a very strong governing body that helps in achieving the set objectives. It relies on the strategy that its employees have to be straightforward and issue no contradictory statement or hide anything concerning the company. Informing its Governing board, SAP copied from the German system by including the employees’ performance in the supervisory board and ranking the Executive Board as the highest in the list of governors. The shareholders are bottom in the list and are under an umbrella called The General Shareholders’ Meeting. This information is summarized in the diagram below:
The Executive Board as the highest ranking in authority passes bills which are regarded as the laws of the firm and these laws are to be based on the strategies and aims of the company and not on individual interest. It is also concerned with implementing the business strategy. The Executive board may be made up of one General and in some cases the General has an assistant. The head and members of the Executive Board are appointed by the Supervisory Board and can only last up to a period not exceeding five years though they are allowed to seek a second term in the Board.
The Executive Board members are entitled to a basic salary which is a fixed amount and re also allowed a extra payment depending on their performance.
The supervisory Board is made up of sixteen members and their work is to ensure that the Executive Board performs its duties. Half of the members are chosen through elections by the shareholders while the other half are appointed by the employees in a general meeting. According to the laws implemented by the SAP governing body, the Supervisory body is allowed to form its own committees that would ensure that its objectives are carried out.
Since SAP offers a large variety of quality products and services, it has been recognized worldwide as the best company in Information Technology that increases production in our businesses. It has expanded widely and offered job opportunities to individuals in several countries all over the world including in the stock exchange market. The SAP software has helped many companies maximize their profits and minimize their expenses through the SAP Net Weaver Technology platform that allows its users to gain from their Information Technology investment. The SAP employees are mainly concerned with rendering quality services to the customers.
With the SAP hardware, an organization or a company is able to effectively put into use arrange the reshaping of servers into providing faster speeds. The SAP hardware helps to reduce errors and reflect on grouping together the identical facilities thus leading to zero-tolerance on the projects that are not fruitful. It is able to transform the enterprise’s requirements and put into practice solutions that are will maximize profits.
The SAP hardware will give an output that is basically productive and will payback for all the expenses incurred. The SAP software has a high level of technology invention that addresses a wide range of the needs of the enterprises and customers. The SAP company has come with English and German version of the software. They are also promising to put in the market a French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese version of the software in a few months’ time. SAP retains the rights to sell its new system though it has appointed IBM to be the major service provider in the data centers. SAP highly depends on the subscription prices to attract customers and enterprises which were in need of lower risks and wanted faster services. SAP has perfectly managed to influence its customers and has a surety of reliable customers. The software has helped business enterprises dealing with healthcare and chemicals to adopt procedures that favor their means of operations and services they offer.
One of the most notable aspects of the SAP is that it is quite complex. This is more so when it is used in a big organization which also has numerous divisions and branches. I The SAP developers have put in invaluable efforts to ensure that there are as minimal problems likely to be encountered by the users of SAP. This they have done through research to analyse the possible problem areas by surveying the end-users of the program. In spite of all this, it is viewed by many users as quite user unfriendly due to its complexity. For this reason, it would be better for the developers and the end users if it was made much simpler without compromising its quality.
When an organization is changing over from a particular system to SAP, there are a number of tasks which are performed manually. The manual performance of these tasks renders the data susceptible to human error. To make this changeover task much better, the SAP developers should look for a way in which SAP can be made to automatically import data from other software. This way the margin of error will be minimized and also the changeover period may be reduced drastically as it can just take a matter of minutes for a huge company with voluminous data and may be just second for smaller companies.
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