Supply Chain Integration in China

Enterprise resource planning, as its name implies, focuses on the needs of the organization: what resources are going to be needed in which areas of the organization in order to accomplish the organization's goals and objectives ("Enterprise Decision Support Systems," 1).

At the heart of ERP systems is their ability to maintain business intelligence, information and data that crosses across the functions of the organization. Customer orders are traced using the same system that tracks orders due from vendors and the production schedule. Engineering drawings used in production are tracked along with sales forecasts and human resource records. In short, an ERP encompasses all aspects of a company's operations. However, traditionally, the information that is contained in an ERP system is not easily retrievable and may require expertise in query languages in order for decision makers to have access to the information they require. At the same time, traditional ERP systems have had difficulty in working with the Internet, causing frustration for employees, vendors and other stakeholders who are increasingly using the Web to interact with each other (Bloodworth 24).

2.1.1 THE BENEFITS OF ERP TO THE COMPANY

One of the most difficult aspects of enterprise resource planning is determining how effective a particular implementation is

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was low, and the company had numerous legacy computer systems that were costly to maintain and that did not enhance productivity among the company's often far-flung branches. The company now credits the implementation of SAP with saving the organization ú40 million and helping the company realize a profit of ú80 million (Cushing 14). Thomas Cook has resisted the temptation to become its own IT provider, and has instead contracted with a third-party, Accenture, to provide a centralized IT service center dedicated entirely to the Thomas Cook organization. Hundreds of Thomas Cook employees are now employed at this Accenture service center. The new service center runs SAP software on Sun Microsystems servers. This was the first major aspect of the company to migrate to SAP software. The goal is that eventually, the legacy systems that remain in operation at Thomas Cook will be phased out. In the meantime, maintenance of these systems has been moved to India where the development costs are far less and where the legacy systems can be maintained more economically (Cushing 14). The company is also embracing customer relation management software from SAP as well as data warehousing capabilities. The goal is to combine these into
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2456
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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