Enterprise Technology and the Value Chain


Enterprise Technology and the Value Chain

         The purpose of this paper is to understand enterprise technology utilized to manage value chain in organization. Enterprise technology is a great tool that streamlines business process and improves value chain of an organization. This paper reviews the importance of enterprise technology such as enterprise resource planning that includes SAP (System Application Program) and Oracle Business Suite.

        Enterprise technology has greatly coordinated all the business processes in an organization from procurement, warehousing, production, quality control, marketing and sales and delivery to customers. There are different technologies implemented in an organization that include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management and Supply Chain Management.

 

Enterprise Technology

          Enterprise Technology has redefined how organizations operate their daily business processes. The implementation of enterprise technology has greatly improved value chain of an organization. Value adding information processes can be very beneficial to the firm by enabling management to “see” the greater picture of the whole value chain, to visualize end-to-end physical operations better through a virtual value chain based on information processed(Guy,2011.p.63).Enterprise technology and information technology has changed business process to increase productivity and efficiency.

        Enterprise technology includes enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and supply chain management. Value production, delivery and coordination thus assume critical role in customer satisfaction management. (Walter & Rainbird, 2007.p218).One of the main priority of an organization is to implement enterprise technology that will make their products and services more effective and efficient so as to maximize profits.

 

Support of Value Chain management

 

          The enterprise technology has great impact on Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Resource Planning and Supply Chain Management; most of this technology depends on cloud computing. Cloud computing, enables organizations to store their information in a virtual server of a host company. An example is Salesforce.com, it is Customer Relationship Management software that helps organizations around the world to monitor customers and also perform marketing and sales activities in the virtual server of the host company. With cloud computing, you eliminate those headaches because you’re not managing hardware and software-that’s the responsibility of an experienced vendor like Salesforce.com.(Salesforce.com,2012).Salesforce.com is a great software that helps organizations to manage their database remotely, all they need is just log in information, no installation and upgrade required. Organization that implements Salesforce.com for their Customer Relationship Management has better competitive advantage over other competitors in the industry and that has actually improved value chain in areas of maintaining customers’ information, sales and marketing. It is always the key to establish and certainly continue a sound and effective value chain for every firm and especially for the manufacturing firms modern marketing methods are always key ingredient for establishing a sound value chain.(Bose,2012.p.113).Marketing and sales is the end product of any manufacturing company and that is the major reason they need to implement enterprise technology such as customer relationship management using software like Salesforce.com.

          It is very effective and reliable tools to manage sales and customers’ information and that will optimize sales performance. Another form of enterprise technology used in organization is Enterprise Resource Planning and one of the tools used is SAP. It is a very efficient and durable tool used to manage all business process of an organization. SAP primarily operates in the US and Germany; it is headquartered in Waldorf, Germany and employed 55,765 people as of December 31,2011(Marketline, SAP AG,2011).SAP has different business functional modules that includes SAP MM (Material management);SAP FICO(Financial and Controlling);SAP HR (Human resources);SAP SCM (Supply chain management);SAP Retail; SAP WM(Warehouse management);SAP PP (Production Planning); and SAP PS (Project System).SAP supply chain management has been implemented by many organization around the world. The SAP SCM supply chain management has help organization to integrate material procurement, purchase order, warehouse, material requisition, production, quality control and sales and delivery to customers. SAP SCM (Supply Chain Management) is a single platform that enables organization to perform many business activities at a time and enables other employees in other departments in real time and that has greatly increased efficiency and job performance.

 

 

Assessment of Enterprise Technology

           Enterprise technology such as SAP programs is a good Enterprise Resource Planning that is stable and secured platform that can withstand external threats caused by software hackers. SAP software can be customized to organizational business function to meet customers’ satisfaction. While an integrated ERP system like SAP can provide sophisticated tools to support sales and operations planning, the plan will only be successful if the interested parties are committed to the process.(Monk & Wagner,2006.p.87).SAP software many functionalities in areas of finance, accounting, human resources ,material management and warehouse management. The SAP software makes it possible to configure the system to integrate all these modules and work as a single platform and that increases all efficiency and productivity.

      Another Advantage of SAP technology is that it has its own built in electronic data interchange where organization that implement SAP software can send email, fax and other messages between organization in a secure environment without using third party email service such as Yahoo and Hotmail.

 

Conclusion

 

          Many forms of enterprise technologies that includes enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and supply chain management have greatly increase productivity and efficiency in organization. The costs of implementing some enterprise technologies are expensive and while some are less expensive.

          Organization has to weigh the cost of implementation, size of their company and level of business process. Small organization we really find it difficult to implement SAP software because it is expensive and it need a lot of configuration and customization but salesforce.com is cheap and affordable is the best choice for both small and big business that focused mainly on sales and marketing. Overall this paper has given me the opportunity to explore the benefit of enterprise technology in today business.

 

 

 

 

References

 

Bose,T.K.(2012).Market segmentation and customer focus strategies and their contribution towards effective value chain management. International Journal of Marketing Studies.Vol.4,No.3,June2012.Retrieved on November 23,2012 from http://kucampus.kaplan.edu/library

 

Guy,A.(2012).Entrepreneur and the value chain: Importance risks and suggestions. Advances in Management.Vol4.No.6 .Retrieved on November 26,2012 from http://kucampus.kaplan.edu/library

 

Salesforce.com. (2012).What is clouding computing. Retrieved on November 26,2012 from www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing

Marketline.(2012).Company Profile SAP AG. Retrieved on November 26,2012 from http://kucampus.kaplan.edu/library

Monk,E.&Wagner,B.(2006).Concepts in Enterprise Resource planning. second edition. Thomson Learning Inc.

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