THE ABC'S OF ERP. (cover story)
Authors:
Bartholomew, Doug1
Source:
CFO; Fall2004, Vol. 20 Issue 12, p19-21, 3p, 2 Color Photographs
小狮子爱尔莎polyvinyl chlorideDocument Type:
Article
Subject Terms:
*RESOURCE allocation
*ENTERPRISE resource planning
*COMPUTER software
*COMPUTER systems
*BUSINESS planning
Company/Entity:
GOODYEAR Tire & Rubber Co. Ticker: GT
443120 Computer and Software Stores
541512 Computer Systems Design Services
Abstract:
This article focus on enterpri resource planning (ERP) software. Even as Y2K ushered in boom times for ERP vendors, they were bet by a string of negative press reports regarding the complexity and cost of getting their software to run effectively, assuming it could be made to run at all. As recently as last year, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. saw one of its units make a $19 million adjustment to operating income due to veral factors relating to the company's ERP systems, including an inability to locate or r
型号的英文ecreate account reconciliations for prior years. According to a spokesman of the company, Goodyear's problems were more an issue with the implementation, not the software itlf.
信息学奥赛
Author Affiliations:
1Writer in Berkeley, California, and former nior technology editor at IndustryWeek
Full
韩国mp3
To maximize the return on this massive software investment, plenty of planning is needed — even if you've been using ERP for years.
Even as Y2K ushered in boom times for ERP vendors, they were bet by a string of negative press reports regarding the complexity and cost of getting their software to run effectively — assuming it could be made to run at all. ERP horror stories abounded, with Hershey Foods Corp.'s perhaps the best-known example. In 1999, the company attributed a 19 percent drop in third-quarter net income in large part to problems associat
ed with its big-bang implementation of SAP software.
Ancient history? Maybe, but as recently as last year, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. saw one of its units make a $19 million adjustment to operating income due to "veral factors relating to the company's ERP systems," including an "inability to locate or recreate account reconciliations for prior years." More notably, NASA blamed an ERP foul-up for its financial woes related to the audit of its 2003 financial statements (e "NASA, We Have a Problem," CFO, May). It should be noted that Goodyear's problems were "more an issue with the implementation, not the software itlf," according to a company spokesman. Similarly, NASA says conversion to its new ERP system caud the problems with its audit. But the question remains: does ERP have to hurt? Years after cost overruns and disappointing returns became press staples, has anything improved?
Although ERP sales, which expanded at more than a 30 percent annual rate in the late 1990s, have flattened, companies spent a robust $20.7 billion on ERP packages last year, including about $6 billion in maintenance and support fees. So if there is widesprea
d dinchantment, it hasn't dragged down sales, although it may have helped usher in a remarkable buyer's market: testimony during the Oracle-PeopleSoft antitrust trial revealed that some customers paid only a fraction of the software's list price.
croscDisasters aside, most companies of a certain size — generally $100 million and above, although simplified ERP software is often pitched to much smaller companies — find ERP virtually indispensable. ERP rves as an all-important information pipeline that links finance, manufacturing, logistics, sales, and other departments, with new functions being added continuously, further extending its prence in an organization. The "resource planning" that gave it its name is now just a very small part of the capabilities it brings to an enterpri.
How to avoid an embarrassing blurb about ERP in your next annual report? First, stay focud on why you're moving to, upgrading, or otherwi changing your approach to ERP. That way, you won't be misled into thinking of it as a technology project. "The benefits come from changing your business process, not from installing ERP," says Bill
自考助学班
Swanton, a vice president at AMR Rearch in Boston. Adds Buzz Adams, president of Peak Value Consulting, a Pasadena, California, consultancy that specializes in process improvement, "The technology will work the way you implement it, so what's important is how you improve the process — the way you do things."transboundary
When Agri Beef Co., a privately held, family owned company that custom feeds 400,000 head of cattle annually, and fabricates and lls 230 million pounds of beef a year to retailers and restaurants, determined that its financial systems were antiquated and its accounting process out-of-date, a move to ERP emed warranted. Cay R. McMullen, director of information systems at the Boi, Idaho, company, says that not only did Agri Beef get a new system up and running in six weeks with no glitches, but that the benefits began to accrue at once.
"We had 20 different process identified where we thought we could get greater efficiencies from new systems," says McMullen. Chief among tho was the company's old method of manually handling intracompany transactions, which saw various business
units cutting and mailing checks to one another. "With the old method, we had to walk each transaction through," says Kim Stuart, treasurer of the $500 millionplus firm. "Now we can post transactions straight through to another division's general ledger account," she says. "That change alone saves us 200 hours a month." A change to its accounts-payable process allowed the company to accomplish in 2 check runs what ud to require 22.
出纳和会计的区别action是什么意思AWARE OF THE BAD PRESS
