BINF 609 Business Informatics

BINF 609 Spring 2020
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Business Informatics – Spring 2020
Enterprise Systems Applications II – BINF 609 – Final Research
The rapid outbreak of the new coronavirus (i.e., COVID-19) caused a global lockdown, which
includes shutting down most businesses across the globe. Business leaders, although not
adequately prepared for such a large-scale pandemic, have initiated crises management program
by asking managers to ensure disrupted processes recovery and critical IT systems are available
to support “work from home” so businesses can continue essential operations such as customer
service, supply chain management, and financial processing. That would consider difficult for
organizations using a traditional client/server ERP system, while for digitized companies, they
consider it manageable to let their workforce work from home. However, for manufacturing
organizations, this is a less workable scenario1.
Immediate Challenge
– Risks of business continuity are among the significant challenges, including disruptions to
the supply chain, changes in customer behavior, unavailability of resources, and gaps in
organizational continuity protocols.
– Variations in transaction volumes because of an increasing shift from traditional to
electronic purchasing or abrupt downturns in customer demand.
– Dynamic environment to respond to immediate business needs for real-time data to support
monitoring, reporting, and decision-making
– Challenges with workforce productivity because of employees working remotely,
accompanied by connectivity and security risks.
What is to do now, and what is next?
Systems resilience defines the capability of systems to operate during a significant disruption
or disaster, with a minimum impact on critical business and operational processes. That means
preventing outages, mitigating their impact, or recovering from them, including applications,
architecture, data, cloud, infrastructure, and network2. Enabling remote access to enterprises
using Cloud-based ERP technology implies the ability to undisrupted access of data and
connected modules from any device, anywhere, and anytime. Following are some benefits of
working remotely:
– Increasing productivity and data accuracy
– Accessing the data with real-time visibility
– Monitoring business processes using one integrated system.
– Supplying customized applications for specific needs.
1 https://www.proshoperp.com/2020/03/can-an-erp-help-during-covid-19-absolutely/
2 https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/company/coronavirus-systems-resilience
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Adopting a Cloud ERP system
Cloud-based ERP systems can provide organizations with remote work to ensure that
workforce is safe and productive amid the current circumstances. Cloud ERP applications provide
a structured framework to assist business continuity now, build resilience for what is next, and
help reform the future for what comes beyond the pandemic3.
The research is required to address this question: “How cloud-based ERP systems could
manage unprecedented disruptions with an eye to the future?”
That includes answering the below sub-questions:
1. Discuss how implementing cloud-based ERP systems would bring flexibility, adaptability,
and agility to the organizations?
o Identify the cloud ERP system components and architecture, understand the benefits and
drawbacks of implementing cloud ERP, and how they can help an organization improve its
efficiency, worker productivity, and face similar obstacles (such as Covid-19 pandemic).
o Describe the implementation process (including the implementation life cycle, business process
re-engineering, project management, and change management).
2. Identify what the system requirements claimed for systems and vendor selection are?
o Identify what the requirements for system and vendor selection regarding the running situation
are.
o Specify the system architecture required to overcome future obstacles similar to the current
crisis.
3. Discuss how the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) assesses the
company’s level of skills and ability to implement a cloud-based ERP system successfully?
o Discuss how the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) assesses the
company’s level of skills and ability to implement a cloud-based ERP system successfully within
the OPM3 pillars (i.e., knowledge, assessment, and improvement).
4. Specify how SCM and CRM in cloud enterprise systems could ensure the continuous
functioning of enterprises?
o Specify the required components of SCM and CRM in cloud-based enterprise systems to
ensure the stable functioning of critical business operations within the enterprise.
5. Discuss how digitalization transformation would shape the future of enterprises to face
similar crises?
o Since intelligent ERP (iERP) is the new backbone of digital transformation, built on new
computing enablers (i.e., Cloud, Analytics, Big Data, and Mobile Technologies, sped up by the
Internet of Things (IoT), and Machine Learning).
o Discuss how digitalization transformation would shape the future of enterprises to face similar
crises with the ability to change their business models and create new products and services in
3 https://www.sjgrand.cn/why-cloud-erp-could-save-your-business-amid-covid-19-cn/
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the digital economy towards the manufacturing environment, leading to Smart Factories and
smart products.
Deliverables:
– An individual Research Report answering the above questions [Range from 1500-2000
words excluding both cover and references pages].
General Guidelines:
– Report format should stick to the following guidelines:
o Layout: normal page margins, A4 size, single column, and the page number in the
footer.
o Font: Times New Roman, headings size 14 pt., text size 12 pt.
o Citation: use numeric in-text citation between square brackets (e.g., [1] or [1,2]).
o Bibliography: references should follow Vancouver system (For example: Ignatiadis I,
Nandhakumar J. The impact of enterprise systems on organizational resilience. Journal
of Information Technology. 2007 Mar;22(1):36-43) and references are sorted in
chronological order (i.e. the same order as they appear in the text).
– The designated research is a pass/fail exercise.
– Integrity of work (plagiarized or duplicate reports are not accepted and will result in a zero).
Additional Resources:
[1]. Bouchemal N, Bouchemal N. Intelligent ERP Based Multi Agent Systems and Cloud Computing. In
International Conference on Machine Learning for Networking 2018 Nov 27 (pp. 378-386). Springer, Cham.
[2]. Curado M, Madeira H, da Cunha PR, Cabral B, Abreu DP, Barata J, Roque L, Immich R. Internet of Things.
In Cyber Resilience of Systems and Networks 2019 (pp. 381-401). Springer, Cham.
[3]. Domi A, Krasniqi B. Entrepreneurs’ Responses to an Economic Crisis: Evidence from a Transitional
Economy. Societal Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness, Emerald Publishing Limited. 2019 Oct 8:185-
202.
[4]. Goel S, Kiran R, Garg D. Vulnerability Management for an Enterprise Resource Planning System. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1209.6484. 2012 Sep 28.
[5]. Heeks R, Ospina AV. Conceptualizing the link between information systems and resilience: A developing
country field study. Information Systems Journal. 2019 Jan;29(1):70-96.
[6]. Ignatiadis I, Nandhakumar J. The impact of enterprise systems on organizational resilience. Journal of
Information Technology. 2007 Mar;22(1):36-43.
[7]. Jenab K, Staub S, Moslehpour S, Wu C. Company performance improvement by quality based intelligentERP. Decision Science Letters. 2019;8(2):151-62.
[8]. Tomov P, Dimitrov L. The role of digital information models for horizontal and vertical interaction in
intelligent production. Facta Universitatis, Series: Mechanical Engineering. 2019 Nov;17(3):397-404.
[9]. Wen Y. Research and Implementation of Intelligent ERP Platform for SMEs Based on Cloud Computing.
In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 2019 Oct (Vol. 646, No. 1, p. 012014). IOP
Publishing.
[10]. Wu JC, Li HH, Cheng WC, Li WJ. An Empirical Study on Enterprise Information Systems for Smart
Manufacturing in Taiwan.
[11]. Zeba G, Lucić J, Čičak M. ERP systems in Croatian enterprises and Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0.
2019;4(6):313-6.