Bis Case Study

com) was taking another crack at replacing its legacy business systems. The Oakland, New Jersey–based distributor of toys and gifts ? nalized plans to roll out J. D. Edwards Co. ’s OneWorld Xe suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management, and ? nancial applications. The multimillion-dollar project was scheduled to be done in phases over the next 18 months. Russ Berrie CIO Michael Saunders said that the company, which had sales of $225 million during the ? rst nine months of 2001, hoped the OneWorld System would help it reach $1 billion in annual revenue in the coming years. Within the next 12 months, he said, Russ Berrie planned to begin installing the applications one department at a time, starting with a stand-alone implementation in purchasing. â€Å"We’re not going big bang,† Saunders said. â€Å"We’re mitigating implementation risks by taking a phased-in approach. The company had reason to be cautious. Three years before, a Y2K-related migration from its homegrown distribution, ? nancial, and customer service systems to packaged ERP applications experienced major system failures. Saunders said the problems were severe enough for Russ Berrie to take many of the new applications off-line and return to their old systems. Saunders wouldn’t identify the software vendors that were involved in the failed impl ementation, but sources said that SAP AG’s applications were part of the 1999 project. A spokesman at SAP con? rmed that Russ Berrie was one of its customers, but he declined to offer further details because of pending litigation between the two companies. Joshua Greenbaum of Enterprise Applications Consulting said it appeared that Russ Berrie â€Å"bit off more than they could chew† on the 1999 project. Companywide rollouts are especially risky for midsize businesses like Russ Berrie, Greenbaum said. T he good news is that Agilent Technologies Inc. (www. agilent. com) says its enterprise resource planning applications are stable. The bad news is they got that way only after a rocky ERP migration project that cost the company $105 million in revenue and $70 million in pro? ts. In mid-August 2002, the multinational communications and life sciences company, formerly a part of HewlettPackard Co. , said problems with the ERP components in Oracle’s e-Business Suite 11e software froze production for the equivalent of a week, leading to the massive losses. The Oracle system handles about half of the company’s worldwide production of test, measurement, and monitoring products and almost all of its ? ancial operations, as well as functions such as order handling and shipping. Agilent was in the process of migrating as many as 2,200 legacy applications that it inherited from HP to Oracle. As part of the switchover, approximately 6,000 orders in the internally developed legacy systems had to be converted to an Oracle-friendly format, an Agilent spokeswoman said from company headquarters in Palo Alto, Califo rnia. She said the con? guration process had problems requiring correction. In a statement last week, Agilent President and CEO Ned Barnholt said the disruptions to the business after implementing the ERP system were â€Å"more extensive than we expected. † An Agilent spokeswoman said the issue wasn’t the quality of the Oracle application, but rather the â€Å"very complex nature of the enterprise resource planning implementation. † For its part, Oracle Corp. said it’s working closely with Agilent. â€Å"At Oracle, we are fully committed to all of our customers for the long haul and support them in any way necessary,† the company said in a statement. We have a strong relationship with Agilent, and both companies believe the implementation is stable. † Agilent also had a takeaway lesson: â€Å"Enterprise resource planning implementations are a lot more than software packages,† the company said in a statement. â€Å"They are a fundamental transformation of a company’s business processes. People, processes , policies, the company’s culture are all factors that should be taken into consideration when implementing a major enterprise system. † According to one analyst, ERP disasters are often caused by the user company itself. Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting, said 99 percent of such rollout ? ascoes are caused by â€Å"management’s inability to spec out their own requirements and the implementer’s inability to implement those specs. † Russ Berrie and Co. After a three-year saga that included a $10. 3 million ? nancial hit from the failed installation of packaged applications, teddy bear maker Russ Berrie and Case Study Questions 1. What are the main reasons companies experience failures in implementing ERP systems? 2. What are several key things companies should do to avoid ERP systems failures? Explain the reasons for your proposals. 3. Why do you think ERP systems in particular are often cited as examples of failures in IT systems development, implementation, or management? Source: Adapted from Marc Songini, â€Å"ERP Effort Sinks Agilent Revenue,† Computerworld, August 26, 2002, pp. 1, 12; and Marc Songini, â€Å"Teddy Bear Maker Prepares for Second Attempt at ERP Rollout,† Computerworld, February 4, 2002, p. 16. Reprinted with permission from Computerworld. Bis Case Study com) was taking another crack at replacing its legacy business systems. The Oakland, New Jersey–based distributor of toys and gifts ? nalized plans to roll out J. D. Edwards Co. ’s OneWorld Xe suite of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management, and ? nancial applications. The multimillion-dollar project was scheduled to be done in phases over the next 18 months. Russ Berrie CIO Michael Saunders said that the company, which had sales of $225 million during the ? rst nine months of 2001, hoped the OneWorld System would help it reach $1 billion in annual revenue in the coming years. Within the next 12 months, he said, Russ Berrie planned to begin installing the applications one department at a time, starting with a stand-alone implementation in purchasing. â€Å"We’re not going big bang,† Saunders said. â€Å"We’re mitigating implementation risks by taking a phased-in approach. The company had reason to be cautious. Three years before, a Y2K-related migration from its homegrown distribution, ? nancial, and customer service systems to packaged ERP applications experienced major system failures. Saunders said the problems were severe enough for Russ Berrie to take many of the new applications off-line and return to their old systems. Saunders wouldn’t identify the software vendors that were involved in the failed impl ementation, but sources said that SAP AG’s applications were part of the 1999 project. A spokesman at SAP con? rmed that Russ Berrie was one of its customers, but he declined to offer further details because of pending litigation between the two companies. Joshua Greenbaum of Enterprise Applications Consulting said it appeared that Russ Berrie â€Å"bit off more than they could chew† on the 1999 project. Companywide rollouts are especially risky for midsize businesses like Russ Berrie, Greenbaum said. T he good news is that Agilent Technologies Inc. (www. agilent. com) says its enterprise resource planning applications are stable. The bad news is they got that way only after a rocky ERP migration project that cost the company $105 million in revenue and $70 million in pro? ts. In mid-August 2002, the multinational communications and life sciences company, formerly a part of HewlettPackard Co. , said problems with the ERP components in Oracle’s e-Business Suite 11e software froze production for the equivalent of a week, leading to the massive losses. The Oracle system handles about half of the company’s worldwide production of test, measurement, and monitoring products and almost all of its ? ancial operations, as well as functions such as order handling and shipping. Agilent was in the process of migrating as many as 2,200 legacy applications that it inherited from HP to Oracle. As part of the switchover, approximately 6,000 orders in the internally developed legacy systems had to be converted to an Oracle-friendly format, an Agilent spokeswoman said from company headquarters in Palo Alto, Califo rnia. She said the con? guration process had problems requiring correction. In a statement last week, Agilent President and CEO Ned Barnholt said the disruptions to the business after implementing the ERP system were â€Å"more extensive than we expected. † An Agilent spokeswoman said the issue wasn’t the quality of the Oracle application, but rather the â€Å"very complex nature of the enterprise resource planning implementation. † For its part, Oracle Corp. said it’s working closely with Agilent. â€Å"At Oracle, we are fully committed to all of our customers for the long haul and support them in any way necessary,† the company said in a statement. We have a strong relationship with Agilent, and both companies believe the implementation is stable. † Agilent also had a takeaway lesson: â€Å"Enterprise resource planning implementations are a lot more than software packages,† the company said in a statement. â€Å"They are a fundamental transformation of a company’s business processes. People, processes , policies, the company’s culture are all factors that should be taken into consideration when implementing a major enterprise system. † According to one analyst, ERP disasters are often caused by the user company itself. Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting, said 99 percent of such rollout ? ascoes are caused by â€Å"management’s inability to spec out their own requirements and the implementer’s inability to implement those specs. † Russ Berrie and Co. After a three-year saga that included a $10. 3 million ? nancial hit from the failed installation of packaged applications, teddy bear maker Russ Berrie and Case Study Questions 1. What are the main reasons companies experience failures in implementing ERP systems? 2. What are several key things companies should do to avoid ERP systems failures? Explain the reasons for your proposals. 3. Why do you think ERP systems in particular are often cited as examples of failures in IT systems development, implementation, or management? Source: Adapted from Marc Songini, â€Å"ERP Effort Sinks Agilent Revenue,† Computerworld, August 26, 2002, pp. 1, 12; and Marc Songini, â€Å"Teddy Bear Maker Prepares for Second Attempt at ERP Rollout,† Computerworld, February 4, 2002, p. 16. Reprinted with permission from Computerworld.

Managerial Accounting Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Managerial Accounting - Assignment Example The company also was awarded with wine award and a gold medal in the wine competition at Sydney in 2011and with medal of gold at an Award function in New Zealand in 2010. With respect to 2010 the EBITDA of the company grew from $29.6 million to $57.1 million in 2011. This resulted in their earnings per share of the company rising from 0.20 cents to 32.6 cents. The rise in the net assets of the company by 10% over the year is a commendable achievement for the company under the ever changing market conditions. Planning Control and Decision making process Management accounting is related to the system of accounting information used by the managers within an organisation. The management accounting provides the managers with the basis of information essential in the decision making of the company so that the resources of the company can be better utilised and functions are in control. At present management accounting has a dual reporting relation in the corporation. The management account ants are the strategic partner responsible in providing decision related to the operational and financial information. Thus it is the responsibility of the managerial accountants in managing the business team along with submission of report in relation to the corporation’s finance. The management accountant portrays planning and forecasting, monitoring and reviewing cost inherent to the business and performance variance analysis of the company. However the three main areas of a management accountant that helps in the planning and decision making of managers are strategic management, performance management and risk management (Bamber, Braun & Harrison, 2009, pp.4-7). Delegat’s Group has adopted the strategy of identifying the â€Å"value growth markets† and â€Å"growth markets† which has proved to be a success in the favour of the company. The strategy thus adopted by the company has resulted in delivering improvement in the profitability of the company. The performance management of the company can well be depicted from the financial performance of the company. A stable growth rate of 10% of operating net profit after tax has been observed from 2007 to 2011 except in 2008 which are due to the global economic downturn. The major improvement in the performance of the company was due to biological assets contribution, net harvest provision and the derivative instruments of the company implemented to hedge the company’s interest rates and foreign currency exposures. Lastly the risk performance of the company is diverted by the use of the options and forward currency contracts. This helps in the economic hedging of the risks associated with the interest rate swaps and foreign currency fluctuations. Thus the management accounting helps in the detection of the variances of the company through which the managers of the company can plan out the strategies of the company; based on which further decisions are taken. Skills of a Managem ent Accountant Skills that are required for a management accountant to efficiently carry out the process of accounting are to have a sound knowledge of both managerial as well as the financial accounting. The management account should have an analytical skill along with the knowledge of how the business of the company is functioning. Good oral and written communication skill is a must for the

Conference and Banqueting Management Assignment

Conference and Banqueting Management - Assignment Example This is through catering to the conference and banqueting purposes of corporate entities. Also the same has become inevitable when it comes to weddings and other gatherings in general. Hence, the conference and â€Å"banqueting† (Sales Coordinator/Executive. n.d) business in itself have developed into a profitable and pioneering industry with a whooping scope of advancement. The UK and European economy has overcome certain fragilities in the recent years accountable to the global financial crisis and the government’s austerity measures and has mounted a powerful and sturdy recovery over the recent years. Investments in terms of restoring, i.e, transferring a business to its country of origin, favors the services and manufacturing industries the most in the recent future. Hence, predominantly the hospitality sector, in particular, the conference and banqueting sector forecasts colossal changes in the years to come. Conference and business events are worth â€Å"18.8 billion† (Koss et al, 2012).every year in the UK economy. Being the third largest to provide employment in the UK, the hospitality sector categorizes labor to various provisions as per functionalities namely corporate and individual businesses. Around â€Å"10 percent† (Murphy, n.d). of the UK workforce comprises of those engaged in the hospitality sector as per statistics of 2014. The hospitality industry remains a significant sector of the economy, with an annual turnover of around  £40billion (Trends & Statistics, 2008, British Hospitality Association). The conference and banqueting sector embraces the idea of self-development to flourish as a responsible business by building brand power and customer loyalty. This can be achieved by delivering innovation, value, and quality of the tasks involved. The success of any given event relies on several factors, the role of conference and banquet catering being paramount of them all.