Chapter 14 - Minicase 2

Implementing SAP R/3 at the University of Nebraska

In preparation for answering the questions, review the University of Nebraska web site.

1. Which of the four options or combinations of options would you recommend to project management and the steering committee? What are the risks involved in your recommendations? How would you manage the risk?

   Buckler should adopt the most conservative and risk aware approach. All of us know Murphy’s law: “If something can go wrong, it will”, and at the most inconvenient time.

   OPTION 1: Use SAP to develop solutions for all the identified shortcomings is the least risky choice. Appraently, SAP has agreed to incorporate the solutions developed into the next release of SAP R/3.

   OPTION 2: Using IBM as described is high risk, high hassle, high cost. This is a last resort solution.

   OPTION 3: It's highly unlikely that all the identified shortcomings are already planned by SAP for the next release of SAP R/3.

   OPTION 4: Delaying the HR part of the SAP R/3 of the system implementation will merit consideration if Opetion 1 is a non-starter.

2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a purchased system that forces different organizational units to change their business processes and policies to conform to the new system. Identify situations where this standardization would be desirable, and other situations where it would be undesirable.

   The advantage of implementing a software package is forced standardization. The same process will be performed the same way at different locations and departments of the university. This approach tends to reduce cost and improve quality.

   The disadvantage of implementing a software package is reduced flexibility and often reduced responsiveness when real changes occur in the organizaiton.

3. Can you think of circumstances where a company might want to install an enterprise management systems, such as SAP’s R/3, even though it appears that this would be significantly more expensive than developing a comparable system in-house? Discuss.

   In-house development of an enterprise-wide system is a very big project. It will take a long time, consume a large number of resources and encounter many risks and setbacks. Such a custom system seldom performs as initially planned. Furthermore, ERP systems are frequently built to provide benefit to many stakeholders including suppliers, customers, banks. Building an ERP system in-house will make it difficult to share/interconnect with other stakeholders. Therein is much of the benefit, anyway. Clients may require us to operate an ERP systemso that they can access it, or at least so they can interact with it. SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle and other major ERPsystems can be interconnected. Can the in-house ERP system handle the required interconnections?

   If someone makes the proposal that it will be cheaper to build than to licens from SAP or one of its competitors, that proposal has likely omitted various real costs that development project will encounter.

4. Go to the site at www.sap.com. Follow the links on the page to look at the features of some cross-industry solutions. Prepare a summary report on the capabilities of the SAP solutions.

   Now the site to visit is Mysap.com.