Analyzing Microsoft ERP's success in American Bible Society

ERP success does not happen all on a sudden in an organization. They can occur only if things are executed in a systematic manner and as planned. Even if things don't go as planned contingencies must be met efficiently and effectively. Such crisis management is a prerequisite in ERP projects because organizations should not stagger when things are not in tune with the expectations.

American Bible Society

The American Bible Society is a non Profit organization. They work towards making bible available to every one in the language and format of their choice so that no one misses a chance in reading it. They also partner with other welfare organizations in sharing this noble pursuit. This organization is known for rendering august services to people all over the world irrespective of caste creed sex religion or any other discriminating element.

Why ERP in American Bible society?

American Bible Society being a welfare organization maintains lots of data and handles queries though not for profit but for service. The stakeholders and other dealing with the organization must be assured of proper and prompt service. Just because the organization does not transact business it is not possible to wither of the responsibility of providing proper services. In fact a non profit organization needs to deliver as much service as a business entity. For the nature of work done a non profit organization may be required to deliver better service than the others. More so when it comes to the question of delivering proper services a service organization engaged in disseminating the message of god and gospel requires more attention.

However American Bible society was having several problems in handling data and managing the transactions in the organization. They were formerly using only J.D. Edward accounting system on an AS400 platform. This was undoubtedly an efficient program but could not handle the volume of operations maintained by American Bible Society.

The organization had Microsoft server as its setup. This proved to be a major hurdle because the employees could not work on one application as such. On the contrary they had to frequently shuffle between the two for the respective functions the software programs were known to be good at. This resulted in wastage of time and added up to the confusions. Employees were even leaving tasks in the midway in order to use the other application for some other purpose in the same assignment. When they returned back to the first application they were not able to perform in the same speed and deliver the same results as well. Further the frequent changeover also put them in great discomfort. This happened to be truer if their IT skills were limited. They would have also lost track of what and how things go about while they change the usage of applications.

These matters became worse as the employees were not performing in line with the standards and targets. This brought large amount of resentment among the customers. The organization also found it unworthy to repair the existing setup because they were too costly. Meanwhile the results produced by them were totally unacceptable. It was at this point of time the organization felt it imperative to go for an enterprise resource planning software. However the company cannot choose a manufacturing enterprise resource planning software.

The plan of Action

They finally decided to stick to Microsoft solutions after carefully choosing from an assortment of ERP packages. One of the prime reasons for choosing them was that it would coincide with the existing technology and deliver better results through the platform interface. First of all it would ensure easy working. They made erp presentation and erp freelance implementation easier.

In addition they had also acquired the services of some third party solutions authorized by Microsoft to make things compact and in one unique setup. The organization implemented ERP at a stretch so that it was beneficial for all the functions.Owing to the largeness of operations and the higher number of users Microsoft happened to be the organizations favorite choice.

There was no more confusion. The workflow got smoothened .Information was properly available to the customers in the right time and in the proper manner. The departments enjoyed greater network and connectivity. In the meanwhile customer queries were responded spontaneously. All hassles faced by the organization were solved.

Other benefits

The organization also enjoyed many more benefits after the ERP software was implemented. They witnessed a huge decline in the costs incurred to procure and maintain licenses with the help of infrastructural facilities of Microsoft solutions. They were also able to reduce the amount of money spent on leasing. Due to the confusions in the organizational setup it was very difficult to generate reports.

The reports generated were neither unambiguous nor did it serve the purpose. The increase in operational efficiency made possible by ERP helped this to happen. Above all everything was delivered within the deadlines. Since the organization has already been using Microsoft it was not difficult to install a Microsoft based ERP application. Moreover there were no troubles in implementing them because the organization had already got used to its features. The apprehensions and change management was not necessary in this case due to the reason citied above.

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