Cadbury’s Experience: Cadbury has had a successful experience with ERP system implementation.Cadbury India has done the first ERP implementation. Cadbury India considered as the first branch that had implemented the ERP system to do its business process.
Cadbury has implemented the ERP system to integrate all of its business process (Finance, Supply chain management, Marketing and sales and Human resource departments) in one integrated system. Cadbury ERP system had integrated the business process of Cadbury’s operation branches and manufacturing branches. Before implementing the ERP system, they were not running on an integrated form except the finance department, which was the only common one.
The implementation of the ERP system in Cadbury took place in 1995 to become a solution for the decentralized modules. Cadbury’s main objective from the ERP implementation is to improve management work.Cadbury chose the Big bang approach to implement the ERP system. Big bang approach used to gather phases of implementation so it will implement the system at one time rather than implementing phase by phase.
Cadbury started to implement the ERP system first in India then they extent it all over the company. Choosing big bang approach methodology to implement the ERP system by Cadbury was a good decision. Cadbury implemented the system in short period of time and gained the benefit of the big bang approach, which is saving time of implementation. In addition, the big bang approach helped to handle Cadbury’s lack of resources for long term.After the successful ERP implementation, Cadbury management get benefit of convenient system that help them make decisions, ability to enter the data only once, combining the data of Cadbury’s branches and updates the whole system.
” It has become totally system driven data enemy now”.The benefits for Cadbury from implementing the new ERP system are saving the time, they had created a strong feedback system to keep eye on the changes and if they are gaining as planned and the lower cost of implementation. The implementation of new ERP system developed a new way of managing the warehouse system.In conclusion, some of the factors that made Cadbury’s successful experience with the ERP system implementation are:Cadbury has chosen the best ERP vendors that helped them to avoid mistakes during the implementation process. Cadbury has implemented the ERP system in small scope first in India’s branch then they had spread their project.
They spent less time and cost on the initial implementation. Finally, Cadbury chose to build the new system upon the strength of the company. Hershey’s Experience:Hershey had a disappointing experience with ERP system implementation. Some problems occurred during the implementation process which, caused mistakes in implementation.Hershey’s company was using the old legacy system with many problems. Hershey’s company started to update its system software and hardware and decided to shift to the client server architecture. In 1999, Hershey has implemented an ERP system Enterprise 21 to help Hershey’s company to recognize its business process.
Moreover, Hershey has installed a barcoding system to work with the Enterprise 21 the purpose of that barcoding system is to enhance the management Logistics, monitor the inflow and outflow of material and to reduce the production cost. In 1999, Hershey has planned to move to the new ERP system.There were some problems that occurred during the implementation process of the ERP system that cause the failure experience of implementation such as, Wrong timing, squeezing the deadlines and the Big bang approach.· Wrong timing: Hershey’s plan was to implement the system by April 1999, because the sales order in these periods are less than other time. “Some of the modules like SAP financial, materials management, purchasing, and warehousing was implemented by January 1999,when the other modules like the critical order processing and billing systems modules from SAP, the pricing and promotions package from Siebel and planning and scheduling modules from Manugistics were behind schedule.
” Hershey’s movement to the ERP system was during the busiest business periods, which is the peak season (holidays). It is advisable for companies moving to new systems to reduce orders to prevent itself from problems that may be caused by untrained employees or unexpected errors. “The wrong timing to implement the ERP system costed the company $150 million in sale.
Profits for the third quarter were dropped by 19% and sales declined by 12% in its 1999 annual report.”· Squeezing deadline: The ERP system scheduled to be implemented within four years but Hershey’s has squeezed the deadlines to thirteen months. As result of the squeezing in the deadline, Hershey’s has become under pressure during the holiday Season. Shipments of Hershey’s were delayed because they could not meet the deadlines. Instead of delivering the products in five days, they delivered the products within twelve days. “Hershey’s became unable fulfill the orders in the peak season Which costed the company US$ 150 million in sales.” Hershey has lost its credibility in the market because it could not deliver the ordered products to the retailers and distributors in the desired time”. · Hershey’s company choose the big bang approach in July 1999 to implement the ERP system, which implement huge pieces of system once.
Hershey’s aimed to meet the Halloween order which is the peak season so they choose the big bang approach of implementing because they will not implement and test in phases it will be implemented only once.In conclusion, some of the factors that made Hershey’s disappointing experience with the ERP system implementation are:Hershey’s company did not implement the new ERP system in the specified time of implementation. In addition, they did not implement the system in the proper manner by testing each module before launching the system. Moreover, Hershey’s management and IT specialist needed to focus more on employee training and education. Especially the employees who will be dealing with the system. They need to understand and follow the business process of the implemented system.
