INCREASING EFFICIENCY

THROUGH ERP - Beroe

Group F
1.NITISH KUMARSUMAN
2.RAMESH KUMAR P
3.SHELKE SHAILESH
SHASHIKANT
4.SRISHTY BARLA
5.TAMARAISELVI A

Increasing Efficiency through ERP - Beroe Page 1

Table of Contents
Executive Summary .............................................................................................................. 2
Information Systems Present in Beroe ................................................................................... 3
ERP Portal ........................................................................................................................ 3
Knowledge Management System: ..................................................................................... 3
Document Management System: ....................................................................................... 3
Bloomberg Knowledge Portal: .......................................................................................... 4
Analysis of Existing Information Systems ............................................................................. 4
Merits of the System ......................................................................................................... 4
Limitations of the current system....................................................................................... 4
Risks of the current System ............................................................................................... 4
Future Challenges.............................................................................................................. 5
Plans of the Company for the next Five Years ....................................................................... 5
ERP Drives Companys Vision ............................................................................................. 5
Vendor Selection ................................................................................................................... 5
ERP Vendor Evaluation .................................................................................................... 7
Evaluation Process ........................................................................................................ 7
Key Evaluation Criteria ................................................................................................. 8
ERP Package Selection: Business Drivers ..................................................................... 8
ERP Package Selection .................................................................................................. 8
Performance based on Selection Criteria ........................................................................ 9
Choice of Consultant ............................................................................................................. 9
Implementation Planning .................................................................................................... 10
Change Management Plan ................................................................................................... 11
Operation/Maintenance Plan ............................................................................................... 12
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 13
Sources of Information ........................................................................................................ 14







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Executive Summary
Beroe is the procurement consulting company specializing in sourcing, supply chain
visibility, financial risk analysis, and environmental impact. Beroe is based in Chennai and
has around 500 employees worldwide. They have offices in USA, India, China, Argentina,
and South Africa. Their customers include over 170 of the Fortune 500. The objective would
be to study the existing ERP solution, and recommend appropriate ERP solutions along with
implementation strategies to meet the current and future IT and business objectives of the
company.



































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Information Systems Present in Beroe
Following are the different software used by the company:

1. ERP Portal
2. Knowledge Management System
3. Document Management System
4. Bloomberg Information Portal
ERP Portal
Existing ERP solution used by the company: Cloud ERP provided by Insite

The company uses a cloud ERP solution provided by the vendor Insite. ERP system used by
the organization is predominantly a HR payroll management system with cloud
implementation and accessed through web browser. It acts as the interface between all the
employees and HR department of the organization. Following are the key modules /
functionalities of the ERP system:

Employee database: Enables employees to store their basic personal and
professional details in a centralized database
Leave Planning: This module manages the leave application by employees and
approval process by the managers.
Performance Appraisal:
Career Planning and Development
Monitoring Work Timings
Resource Requesting Platform
Resignation Process
Knowledge Management System:
The company uses a cloud ERP solution provided by the vendor Insite. KMS is effected
through on-premise implementation with local installation in all the PCs/laptops in the office
premises. It enables the company to retain the organizational knowledge in a centralized
location, which can be referred by any employee at any point of time. This ensures
knowledge volatility risk of the organization is reduced, as the key knowledge gathered by
the employees during work is captured by the system.

Following are the key functionalities of the knowledge management system used by the
company:

Uploading the documents and information along with meta data
Searching for desired information using keywords
Document Management System:
Company uses a centralized disk storage system partitioned on the basis of various teams in
the organization. Through this arrangement, employees can store their documents in the
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respective folders assigned to their team and can also retrieve documents stored in folders to
which access privileges are granted by the IT administrator.
Bloomberg Knowledge Portal:
Being a consulting firm, Bloomberg knowledge portal acts as the key repository of external
information and is highly critical for the running of its business. The portal basically
consolidates information from multiple global research portals and provides the information
desired by the employees on a single touch point.
Analysis of Existing Information Systems
Merits of the System
Following are some of the merits of the current model of information system adopted by the
organization:
Lower cost as against a full-fledged comprehensive ERP system
Simplified software architecture
Cloud model for ERP reduces the overall spending on software for the organization
Knowledge Management system enables retaining organizational knowledge as
employees move out of the company
Bloomberg knowledge portal consolidates the information from multiple research
agencies which saves employees time in searching separately in individual research sites
using tedious secondary search techniques
Document storage architecture provides selective access of folders to employees and
managers at different level of hierarchies
Sales, Marketing and Finance functions of the company can work independent of the
software architecture
Limitations of the current system
There is no software used by Sales and Marketing team, leading to redundancy in
some sections of work for the team
There is no software to support core operations of the company. For example, designs
for powerpoint files are created redundantly across functional teams and time periods.
Automated design template software would be very useful
Finance domain staff are still using excel software to manage invoices raised by the
analysts for payment to the external experts contacted as part of their research and there is a
delay in making payment to the experts, as it is not automated. Sometimes, payments are
forgotten and are not made until reminded by experts, which leads to their dissatisfaction
Communication with external and internal stakeholders is mostly done through email,
leading to inefficiency and redundancy
Risks of the current System
There is security risk for the ERP system, as it is deployed in cloud implementation
No competitive differentiation, hence, new entrants can offer same services at reduced
cost with the help of automation of several operational aspects
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Future Challenges
No automation and high amount of routine work being performed across organization
may lead to employee dissatisfaction leading to employee retention problems
Due to increasing expansion of the organization across different countries and
continents, decentralized software architecture does not allow the organization as a whole to
capitalize on information synergies
Plans of the Company for the next Five Years
Rapid growth Achieve revenues of more than $100 million by 2019
Introduce IT systems to assist core operations of the company
Software to customize the pre-defined powerpoint templates, which can be used by the
analyst for their work
Enroll an automated communication system, which will enable the employees to connect to
their information providers in a systematic manner and also help automate redundant
communication messages
Expansion to 2 other cities in India
Expansion to Bangalore and then to Delhi
Shift to client-site operation model
Enable a few specialized analysts from different domains to work in clients site on a yearly
model
Expansion to 3 different continents across the globe
Expansion across Europe, South America and Asia Expand across China, UK, Argentina,
Germany, etc.
ERP Drives Companys Vision
Use of ERP software will increase the operational efficiency, which will drive the
vision of the company
Reduction of time spent in redundant communication messages sent by the analyst to all their
information providers
More effective graphic representations for the powerpoint lead to creation of more effective
presentations by the client
Use of ERP solution will lead to better control and coordination, as the company
expands across the globe
This will set the foundation for further expansion across the globe in future
Vendor Selection
Beroe is a Small cap company so criteria for selection of a ERP vendor will be different from
that of a Large cap or even Mid Cap company. The general payback period of the ERP
system is upwards of 25 months so the cost implication of the selection of a vendor will be
very critical for Beroe.


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The factors that are to be taken into consideration for selection of the ERP system. The
factors are
Cost
Customization
Real Time changes
Ease of implementation
Maintenance
Flexibility
User friendliness
Systems Requirements
Training
Integration with other present systems
Vendor credentials
Reporting and analysis

These above factors need to be assessed to determine which ERP system will be useful for
the company. Based on the requirements of the company Vendor selection needs to be
performed. As is always advisable initial shortlisting needs to be done before and the number
of prospective vendors needs to be brought to below 5. It is considered that more choices
create more difficulty in selection so in the initial shortlisting process many companies need
to be removed from the list and the final number of vendors that is to be considered for
selection has to be reduced to 5.

The factors that needs to be considered for the vendor selection are
Vendor reputation
Alignment to business function
Support of Top Management
Cost
Training and Support, User Friendliness
Past experience and Implementation plan
Technical expertise
Level of customization offered
Business process reengineering support
Vendors business history

If these factors are classified in terms of priority for a Small Cap company like Beroe then
these can be put under three heads of Major Moderate and Minor importance

Major Moderate Minor
Vendor Reputation Past Experience User friendliness
Alignment with
business function
Training and Support Technology
Cost Implementation plan
and Duration
Vendors business
history
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Support of Top
management
Level of customization
Technical expertise

According to the above criteria the following five ERP vendors have been shortlisted for
Beroe
Syspro ERP- It is a South Africa based company and offers Microsoft.net based
integrated supply chain , ecommerce, CRM and planning and scheduling. It
includes financial, distribution and manufacturing. It has even started to offer
SaaS products
NetSuite ERP- It is a real time dashboard integrating business data across
departments with ability to be able to offer personalization for each employee. It
offers a web based ERP. Its market share is 2% in the Global ERP market.
Visibility ERP- With a market share of around 1% it offers and ERP solution for
management, CRM, quotes, projects, costs, MRP, product manufacturing,
financial and supply chain integration. It has also offered its product now on
apples iPad
Intutive ERP- It incorporates CRM, BI and ecommerce features in addition to its
manufacturing stronghold. It incorporates established manufacturing and
accounting practices and standard business cycles. It is based on Microsoft.net
Activant ERP- Specially catering to small and medium businesses activant has a
strong presence in retail and distribution. It has a market share of 1% in
manufacturing segment ERP
ERP Vendor Evaluation
After identifying the list of vendors which would meet the companys requirements based on
feasibility study the next step is to evaluate all the vendors and select the most appropriate
vendor for the firm and the ERP package. The ERP packages can vary based on the features,
technology, architectures and platform. The evaluation committee should be made up of
various representatives of the user community like the project managers, technical leaders
and staff.
Evaluation Process
It involves doing a high level evaluation of the vendors. An evaluation criteria can be
prepared based on the business needs. The companys needs can be listed down as items
and categorized vital-essential-desirable. A request for information (RFI) is given to the
vendors to get the information about their product and offerings. A review of this
information from the vendors would help to identify the vendors which match closely
with the business process and requirements of the company. Help from consultants can be
taken. The vendors can be cross questioned and even asked to give a demo of the product.
The next step is the bidding process wherein the company requests for bids(RFB) after
giving the details about the type of ERP system the company wants with specific
functionality , hardware, software, training requirements and contract related issues. The
vendor selection process can be distributed within the firm based on expertise. The office
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staff can evaluate the functionality, IT staff can evaluate technology and the contract staff
can evaluate the contract and pricing. No vendor can meet all requirements of the form
and hence the objective must be to get the best fit. Learnings can be drawn from other
companys experiences.
Next step is to determine the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) including the maintenance
and upgrades cost. It can serve a good financial tool for evaluation of the vendors.
Key Evaluation Criteria
Multi-language, multi-currency support and installation in different countries with local
presence since the company operates in different geographies (USA, India, China,
Argentina, and South Africa)
Cost of the package with all the necessary modules should be less than $4,00,000 (the
average TCO for a 50 million$ company is $3,84,295)
ERP Package Selection: Business Drivers
Increase the operational efficiency, which will drive the vision of the company
Reduce the time spent in redundant communication messages sent by the analyst to all
their information providers
More effective graphic representations for the PowerPoint which can lead to creation of
more effective presentations by the client
Better control and coordination, as the company expands across the globe
This will set the foundation for further expansion across the globe in future
ERP Package Selection
Considering the merits and demits of the available options and based on the requirements of
the company the most suited option for the company is NetSuite.
NetSuite
The company makes cloud-based SaaS integrated business management software. The
company launched NetSuite OneWorld in 2008: a software for global businesses. It has
modules for accounting and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), ecommerce and professional services automation. Users can access the
software via a Web browser and pay a monthly subscription price.

Some of the advantages of NetSuite for Beroe are:
Cloud based software; offers mobility required by consultants visiting or residing on
client sites as it can be accessed from anywhere
Can be accessed across Global offices
Pay Per Use : hence low cost; suitable for a small company like Beroe
Past Customers : Qualcomm, Seimens, ESET, Igloo, CELLBikes, Coffee.org, Cord,
Blood America.Inc, DiamondFleet Managemnt
SuiteCloud Developer Network NetSuites SuiteCloud Developer Network is a Java-
based development platform for NetSuite partners and customers to customize the
software and build new applications to complement NetSuite
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It includes the SuiteApp.com solution directory and a number of developer tools
Performance based on Selection Criteria
The firm was evaluated based on its performance in the factors that needs to be considered
for the vendor selection. The performance in each factor was ranked High, Medium and Low

Major Score
Vendor Reputation Moderate
Alignment with business function High: meets the required criteria
Cost High: Pay Per Use : hence low
cost; no hardware costs
Support of Top management Unknown
Past Experience Moderate founded in 1998
Training and Support High
Implementation plan and Duration High : less duration as no need to
install hardware on client site
User friendliness High
Technology High: Cloud based
Vendors business history High: Many reputed customers
Level of customization High: SuiteCloud Developer
Network platform for
customization
Technical expertise Unknown

Choice of Consultant
Currently ERP system is being used predominantly for HR functions. Using ERP solutions to
carry out their core activities require a new system to be implemented. Organizations go for
consultants when they lack experience in implementing ERP systems.
Consultants may be involved in all the stages of ERP implementation like Software selection
and purchasing, planning stage, Implementation stage, and Post-implementation stage.
According to Panorama consulting 2013 ERP report, the percentage of firms which use
consultants at different stages is
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Also, ERP consultant may assist in change management activities which are a major
challenge for the firms implementing ERP solution. The key benefit of using a consultant is
knowledge transfer from consultants to the firms employees, which when done correctly,
will make the firm self sufficient and get rid of the consultants sooner.

Many organizations often keep implementation consultants on staff even after the system is
deployed for support and as a safety measure in case there needs any change in the
configuration. According to experts, implementation consultants may not be best suited for
application support. Hence a service geared towards service can be hired.

Recommendations for Beroe:
As the firm has no experience in ERP implementation and the IT team at Beroe is
not efficient enough to handle it, it is advisable for them to hire ERP consultants
to do the following:
Selection of ERP package
Creating Equilibrium between system capabilities and organizational
objectives
Present and prospective system analysis and documentation
Development, management, implementation of ERP system
Imparting education and training to existing and prospective end users
Also, as implementation consultants are expensive it is advisable to hire services
geared towards application support as they are cheaper and are better at system
maintenance.
Implementation Planning
Implementation of full-fledged Comprehensive ERP system:
Comprehensive ERP system covering the Sales, Marketing and Operations functions may be
implemented across the organization



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Cloud Implementation:
The new ERP system should be implemented on a cloud model, as the organization is
relatively small with a strength of around 400 employees

Big Bang Implementation:
Software may be implemented on a big bang basis, as the organization is relatively small with
employee strength of around 400

However, implementation in offices across different cities and countries should be done in
phased manner learning iteratively from the success and failure lessons in every successive
implementation

Vanilla Implementation:
Selection of vendor and software package should be done such that no or minimal
customization is required, as the size of the organization is still relatively small and highly
customized system may not provide sufficient returns
Change Management Plan
Since the company is planning an ERP implementation which would assist and thereby
change the core operation of the company namely consulting; the changes in the organization
would be profound and require effective change management for smooth implementation.
This will require the company to be prepared for the implementation which is as important as
the project itself.

Need for change management:
Maximise collective benefit for all involve in the process
Minimise risk of failure of implementation
Motivate the employees to adapt to the change
Facilitate smooth functioning of the organisation
During the change certain things are to be considered:
Availability of skilled employees to successfully complete the implementation
The technological environment is ever changing
Technological obsolescence
The process is lengthy and complex
It takes time to realise the benefits of the implementation
Resistance from employees
Training and reallocation of the employees
During the implementation:
When the process takes place the company needs to
Provide assistance and support
Help the employees to detect and rectify the mistakes in the new system
Creating a help desk that will address all the problems at one stop
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Conduct auditing activities
Internal communication
It is necessary to communicate about changes taking place in business processes to the
employees. Emails, newsletters and departmental meetings can be some of the effective ways
to communicate about the ERP project. The employees also should be kept updated about the
process. It is important for the management to positively emphasize about change in the
organization and the importance of adapting to change.

Training
The employees are to be trained for the new software and system. They must be able to well
equipped and capable of handling the software, this can be done by providing them proper
training. This happens before the Go-live of the project and continues after the
implementation in order to address the issues that come up later.

Resistance to change among employee due to change in roles or responsibilities. Most
people feel very much comfortable with the old legacy system and it takes a little bit of effort
to train them to adapt to the new system. It is a common challenge faced by trainers while
managing change. This can be managed by significant effort and proper planning which will
help in reducing the resistance from employees and can be dealt effectively.

Post implementation assistance
There should be proper assistance available for the employees when they face problems with
the new system. There should be post-implementation audit to track and report the progress
of the system and the problems faced. Obstacles should be identification and solution to be
provided.
Operation/Maintenance Plan
Beroe has till this point been following a hybrid maintenance strategy, wherein
troubleshooting of day-to-day issues has been carried out by in-house IT team, whereas the
major issues with the software were managed by the software vendor. However, this strategy
would need to be slightly modified going forward. In-house IT team may not be able to
manage the complexities in the new ERP system. Hence, a higher degree of vendor
involvement is necessary for resolving the maintenance issues. Though some day-to-day
support issues may be managed by the in-house IT team, there should be vendor involvement
for issues with high complexities. Major updates / upgrades may be obtained from the
vendor. Following table shows for In-house maintenance is suited for which type of
organizations and the same for outsourced maintenance.






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Analysis of Available Maintenance Options:

Maintenance
Option
Best-fit Scenario Risks
In-House
Maintenance
This model is suited for
large Organization that
wants a higher commitment
and lesser down-time to
resolve maintenance
related issues.
The buyers IT team might
take higher efforts and time
to resolve certain
maintenance issues, which
could have been managed
with much higher ease by
the vendor.
Outsourced
Maintenance
This model is best suited
for small organizations
which wants to focus on
their core capabilities
instead of maintenance
related issues.
There may be lesser
commitment and higher
downtime in resolving
maintenance issues.

Recommended Operation/ Maintenance Strategy for Beroe:
Day to day IT support activities may be carried out by in-house IT team. But, if the
complexity of the support issue raised is high, quick vendor involvement is necessary.
To ensure fast resolution of support issue by the vendor, the service level agreements
should clearly specify the timeline within which various levels of support issues need
to be resolved. For example, Level 1 issues must be required to be solved in 4 hours
from the time of calling.
Major updates / upgrades should be obtained from the software vendor on a quarterly
/ yearly basis, whichever cycle is being followed by the vendor
Training may be provided to the employees in a phased manner within the first 1 year
of implementation. Initially, vendor representatives would provide training to in-
house IT team, who would then be required to pass on the lessons to employees across
the company
Conclusion
Hence, it is necessary to consider the type, size of firm; size of vendor; expertise of vendor;
budget of the firm; and mainly the necessity for an ERP solution in a firm. It is also important
to involve the employees in all stages of ERP implementation to avoid resistance from them
at a later stage. Consultants need to be involved at all stages of ERP implementation in case
there is no expertise available with the firm.
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Sources of Information
The information about the company was mainly collected from the employees currently
working in the organization and based on the direct observations of our team. Additional
study about the ERP systems and industry benchmarks was carried out using secondary
search.