Case Title: Wawa Flying High

Background of the Case:

Wawa, headquartered in Pennsylvania, was once just a dairy. After some years, the

privately held firm established convenience stores in which it sold its dairy products. The variety

of items sold kept growing. Wawa’s coffee became famous (“over 125 million cups sold

everyday”). The chain grew from one location in Pennsylvania to 550 stores. The stores are

operated by 13, 000 associates. In the early 2000’s, Wawa started opening its own gas station,

and, of course, each gas station has a Wawa store.

Due to unavailability of a software tools to ensure that all departments have access to

pertinent data in the same format, McCarthy, Wawa’s CIO, wanted to have the entire

organization to have a unified view of any data, and therefore the same information foe decision

making, whether the information was produced by the marketing, accounting, or real-estate

department.

To meet the new goal, Wawa decided to implement an ERP system. Management

approached SAP and Retek. At the time, SAP and Oracle were engaged in a fierce bid to acquire

Retek, a company that developed and sold an ERP and business intelligence software package

called ProfitLogic. Eventually, Oracle won the bid and purchased Retek. Unrelated to Oracle’s

new acquisition, Wawa selected SAP as its supplier of ERP software.

Statement of the Problem

Wawa company units saw data in different formats, which led them in making decisions

based on different information.

Objective of the Case Study

To find software that could help Wawa Company produce unified information to the

different units of Wawa Company.

Alternative Courses of Action

Oracle Applications

Oracle Applications has built a sophisticated portfolio of business software applications,

which complement the company’s traditional strength in database and infrastructure systems.

Their core applications include customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource

planning (ERP), financial management, human capital management, supply chain management

and transportation management.

Advantages. Procurement cards are highly integrated with the General Ledger. Design-to-

Order and Manufacture-to-Order cost and schedule information is very useful. Repair action

recording and sales forecasting are also strong.

Disadvantages. Online Expense reports were cumbersome and not user friendly.

Identification of components without suppliers was difficult. Oracle has no out of the box

dashboard or scorecard functionality. Use of a shipper's memo to drive stock transactions is poor.

The ability to accumulate labor against a work order was limited. Many industry specific forms

are not available out of the box.

NetSuite

NetSuite is a business management software suite offered as a service that performs

enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) functions. It

is a horizontal package designed for extensive range of industries. The NetSuite Financials

system can integrate with a company’s back-office, sales, and service processes. NetSuite

Financials includes applications for financial accounting, financial reporting and analytics,

payment management, order and billing management, supply chain management, and inventory

management. Financial information through NetSuite can be accessed through a web browser or

mobile device. The system undergoes automatic upgrades and comes with various customization

options.

Advantages. One of the best things about NetSuite is the versatility and customizability of

the product. If you need to flag specific transactions for internal and unique reasons, you may

able to add a checkbox to any transaction that the user can check which will flag an alert. It is

truly helpful to be able to customize the forms within the system. 

Another good thing about this is that it is internet-based. We are not required to maintain servers

and software. We have employees in multiple locations including some working from their

homes. It is nice that all they need to work on the system is internet access. Information is

available in reporting, the options to view various screens, and the reliability.

Disadvantages. The support, report usability, and customer service. They sell support

packages with the initial package and are unwilling to help with basic issues. The knowledge

base is very general, and if you send in an email ticket, you generally receive a link to the
general knowledge base articles. It also lacks user-friendliness in customizing reports and

utilizing nifty features such as Workflow.

Sage

Sage ERP is a family of products that meets the needs of many small to mid-sized

manufacturing or distribution firms. The portfolio includes Sage ERP MAS, Sage ERP Accpac,

and Sage ERP X3. These products provide broad and deep functionality to serve repetitive,

make-to-stock, make-to-order, and process modes of manufacturing. Sage ERP also offers

functionality for accounting, inventory control, material resource planning, shop floor control,

human resources, and supply chain management. The system is relatively unique for the

manufacturing and distribution software markets in its ability to offer the choice of multiple

databases, operating systems, and deployments (on-premise or web-based). The easily

customizable portfolio is especially popular among global enterprises with multi-language and

multi-currency requirements.

Advantages. The implementation specialist from Sage was as helpful as we moved to the

new system. Our team didn't learn very quickly and had a little trouble picking it up, but with

time and support the users have adopted the system. The customer support does a great job. The

system saves time, is user-friendly and reduces duplicate data entry. Sage is very easy to learn

and also very helpful with what I use it for. The customer service is excellent because they really

take the time to explain things that you are having difficulty with. The system can manage

complex transaction and reporting capabilities are diverse and fulfilling with the optional fields

module.
 Disadvantages. Sage has a high cost of ownership and maintenance of Sage ERP System

is expensive. Various module of Sage are loosely integrated and even the interfaces of various

modules are quite dissimilar. Also, the implementation of this system may take a lot of time and

resource.

IFS Application

IFS Application is a global enterprise software vendor providing business software

through a single solution that helps companies get better return on investment. FS brings

customers in targeted sectors closer to their business; it helps them be more agile and enables

them to profit from change.

Advantages. IFS Applications support countless interaction between Engineering Change

Requests and Engineering Change Orders. Its applications also easily handle stackable and non-

stackable phantom subassemblies. Customer account creation is very user friendly. Sales order

and product profitability analyses are done through pre-built scorecards that run off of

sophisticated queries that eliminate the need to populate online analytical processing (OLAP)

cubes.

Disadvantages. Identification of components with long purchase lead times at an early

design stage and for early planning purposes is poor.

Microsoft Dynamics AX

Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta) is a comprehensive enterprise resource

planning (ERP) software solution for larger, enterprise organizations that empowers businesses
to operate effectively, adapt and grow easily, and compete globally. The high degree of

scalability within Microsoft Dynamics AX offers multi-site and multi-country businesses an

integrated solution that improves productivity and business efficiencies, across multiple regions,

languages and currencies. This solution matches industry specific capabilities with the latest

Microsoft technologies to provide efficient business solutions.

Advantages. Some of the benefits of Microsoft Dynamics are as follows: Multilayered

architecture offers business agility to cater to rapidly changing business requirements; A true

mixed-mode ERP solution, offering both discrete- and process-based manufacturing

functionality; Leverage of industry best practices and vertical-market processes through the

business process library (BPL); Seamless Microsoft Office integration with Excel, Word,

Outlook, and Dynamics CRM, often with one click and; An enterprise portal that promotes both

internal and external collaboration, as companies can share information upstream and

downstream to streamline production and delivery

Disadvantages. Some of the weaknesses of Microsoft dynamics are as follows: Software as a

Service and cloud ERP options are still limited, and don't compete favorably with pure-play

cloud ERP solutions; Dynamics AX incurs higher costs and risks associated with partner hosting,

due to reduced investments, competencies and resourcing as compared to publisher hosted SaaS

ERP solutions; The user interface (UI) is satisfactory, but fails to take advantage of the lessons

learned from consumer technologies and does not deliver a rewarding user experience; Microsoft

is extremely behind in recognizing and delivering Enterprise 2.0 and social business solutions;

Dynamics ERP offers very limited cross-platform support—including narrow support for

browsers, operating systems and databases.

Recommendation

From the five competing alternative courses of action garnered by the researchers, it is

highly recommended for Wawa Company to use the Net Suite Business Management Software.

For the reasons of, First it offers in unification of information of their Company, which is their

primary concern. Second, since Wawa Company operates in more than 550 stores in different

locations, it is better for them to have an internet based Enterprise Resource Planning in order for

the managing employees of the company will have an easy access with the information even if

they are not in their respective offices. Third, it possesses financial management modules which

organize accounting functions across departments and create a centralized system for monitoring

cash flow.

Implementation

ERP implementation efforts require commitment by a project team and support by

business leaders to ensure success. ERP software is powerful technology that can streamline

processes, improve visibility, reduce costs, and completely change the way that your company

does business—but it won't happen overnight.

Before starting any ERP implementation, Wawa Company should make sure that the

company has the staff resources in place to see the project through to completion. This may seem

like an obvious point, but many companies begin deployment without resourcing it adequately,

resulting in overworked, unhappy employees and a less-than-optimal installation.

Identifying a dedicated project leader and a team for the ERP implementation will help

ensure that the project goes smoothly. For ERP team members, consider reassigning or removing

some of their normal job duties so they have enough time to concentrate on the task at hand.
Identify a team leader with strong project management skills who can facilitate team

communication, address any issues that may arise, and keep the implementation on schedule.

Keeping these best practices in mind will help Wawa Company launch their deployment

on the right track and keep it there throughout the entire process. Researching the best ERP

implementation option for your business, building consensus around the effort, setting realistic

expectations, and giving your staff the support they need—these steps take more time, but they

result in a more effective ERP experience and a better-run business in the long term.
 Literature Cited

EnterpriseResourcePlanning.(nd).Retrievedfromhttp://www.softwareadvice.com/erp/ne tsuit

profile/?layout=var_w1

SAGEEnterpriseResourcePlanning.(nd).Retrievedfromhttp://www.softwareadvice.com/erp/sage-

profile.

OracleApplicationsEnterpriseResourcePlanning.(nd).http://www.technologyevaluation.com/rese

arch/article/ERP- Selection-Facts-and-Figures-Case-Study-Part-2-Qualitative-

Assessments-and- Analysis.html