Chapter 9 - Achieving Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy: Enterprise Applications

Enterprise systems help businesses achieve operation excellence by collecting data and feeding into numerous applications that can support nearly all of an organizations internal business activities.  As new information is entered by one process the information is made available immediately to other business processes.  The enterprise systems support organizational centralization by enforcing uniform data standards and business processes throughout the company and a single unified technology platform.  The company-wide data generated by enterprise systems often helps managers evaluate company performance.

In order for supply chain management systems to coordinate planning, production and logistics with suppliers they must automate the flow of information among members of the supply chain so they can use it to make better decisions about how to much purchase and when and where to ship it.  The more accurate the information received the less likelihood of uncertainty and the impact of the bull whip effect.  Supply chain management software includes software for supply chain planning and for supply chain execution.  Internet technology supports the management of global supply chain information.  Better communication between the chain members also gains better customer response and movement toward a demand-driven model.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems integrate and automate customer facing processes in sales, marketing and customer service which provides an enterprise-wide view of customers.  Many companies use this knowledge to enhance customer interactions and provide them with better service or the ability to provide new products and services.  The biggest customer relationship management software packages provide capabilities for both operational CRM and analytical CRM.  They typically include modules for managing relationships with selling partners and for employee relationship management.

As enterprise applications are difficult to implement there are challenges that arise.  Enterprise applications require extensive organizational change, big software investments and careful assessment of exactly how these systems will enhance organizational performance.  In order for the systems to enhance operations they must be integrated into systems that are not flawed, that and ensuring that all employees understand how to use systems and how they should work help enhance a successful roll out.  Training for all employees using the technology is necessary as well.

Service platforms integrate data and processes from the various enterprise applications and from legacy applications to create new and composite business processes.  The new services are driven through enterprise portals which can integrate applications so that information appears to come from a single source.  Mobile, cloud and open source versions of this are products that are becoming more and more readily available.