Network Enterprise Architecture - Assignment Example

Network Enterprise Architecture Table of Contents Network Enterprise Architecture 1 Table of Contents 1 1 Q 1: 2 1.Business functional areas their products support 2 2.The product’s industry focus 3 3.Vendor’s market presence 4 4.How fit the vendor’s product is for the company? 5 Q 2: 5 Q 3: 8 Epicor Signature Methodology 8 1.Major tasks and their sequence 8 2.Advantages of the methodology 8 3.Disadvantages of the methodology 9 4.Type and conditions of projects where it is suited 9 References 9 Q 1: Three ERP software vendors selected for the small manufacturing company are as these: 1. Epicor: Epicor is based in Austin, Texas and is a privately owned company that was founded more than 4 decades ago. It provides ERP solutions in distribution, manufacturing, services and retail sectors. Website: Epicor.com‎ (Epicor, 2015) 2. Infor: This is a relatively new company that was founded in 2002 and is based in U.S. serving several segments, including supply chain, which forms an essential component of manufacturing industry. In such a short span they have been able to raise their customer base to 70,000 plus with more than 12,400 employees. They have presence in around 194 countries and have several technologically-driven service and sales partners; around 1,400. The company is considered as the third largest ERP maker in the world. Website: Infor.com (Infor, 2015) 3. SAP: This is a German company, relatively new since it was founded in 2006, but has a carved a niche for itself throughout the world. The best part about SAP is that it makes global integration of businesses very easy and creates an efficient employee work environment. Website: SAP.com (SAP, 2015) 1. Business functional areas their products support Epicor has serves a spectrum of industries and provides innumerable services to small and big companies across the world. Most of their services are tailor-made and meet demands of the manufacturing, retail, distribution, hospitality and other segments. They offer compressive solutions in all these segments through what they call as "business layers" approach. Over the years that have grown a rich portfolio of what they offer industry and some of the well-known ones include those in Financial Management, Planning and Scheduling, Warehouse Management, Supply Chain Management , Production Management , Service Management, Sales Management , Customer Relationship Management, Mobile Applications, Merchandising, Governance, Risk and Compliance, Cross-Channel Order Management and many more. This is headquartered in New York and its major strengths are resource pplanning and financial systems. It shot into prominence as it began to acquire several companies like Agilisys (SCT) (2002), Future Three (2003), Brain AG (2002), Infor Business Solutions (2004), Varial Software (2004), Daly.commerce (2004), IncoDev Software (2004), IncoDev Software (2004), NxTrend Technology (2004), Lilly Software Associates (2004), Aperum (2004), Paragon (2005), Mercia Software (2005), Intuita Holdings (2005), MAPICS (2005), Formation Systems, Inc. (2005), Datastream (2006), and Alpine Systems (2005) etc. Just a little over a fortnight, Infor signed an agreement to acquire yet another company known as GT Nexus for $675 million. Before acquisition GT Nexus was considered as the world's largest cloud-based platform. SAP is serving several modules; most important ones include field service, marketing and sales, utilities for marketing, product development and design, inventory control and production, finance and accounting and human resources. It is unique in the sense that it collects company data from separate modules, integrates them and then provides an enterprise solution. If implemented effectively, these are supposed to prove cost-effective. 2. The product’s industry focus Arguably the best company around in ERP segment, Epicor delivers end-to-end business solutions in manufacturing, hospitality, and retail and services segment. The solutions are such that help improve performance, increase efficiencies and build competitive advantage. Infor greatest strength lies in its capability to identify new and innovative answers to industry's questions. It makes the work rather a way easier since it is able to reinvent its solutions with each in the cloud making risk of traditional deployments, high costs and complexity actually a thing of past. Even as the competition is fierce in the ERP segment, SAP still stays a leader. It offers scalable solutions which are also customized. The best part is that it can easily be integrated in any future applications. 3. Vendor’s market presence The company has been in the business for more than four decades now and as on date it leads in the market share of this segment. Customers have voted Epicor as one of the topmost choices as among their preferred solutions providers. Epicor's forty years of hard work has scaled its growth to more than 20,000 customers spread over almost whole of globe; around 150 countries. And the company serves midmarket, small and larger enterprises. As a result of such vast reach, its affiliates and offices are spread worldwide. Even as Infor is quite a child in comparison to Epicor, its growth has been staggering. With $3billion in revenue, Infor has been able to develop a customer base of 70,000 and a little over 12,000 employees. In the whole customer base it supports around 3,500 product specialists in 194 countries, which is relatively higher than that of Epicor. The languages that it serves are around 20. SAP has around 35,000 customers and serves in more than 120 countries. It is the one that built the ERP market client/ server, has an impressive distribution and provides several industry solutions. The pricing though is at high end. Considered to be a market leader, it is Fortune 1000/ Global 5000 company. On its part, the company claims that it has a strong presence in the 'middle market' share (Erpsoftware360, 2015). 4. How fit the vendor’s product is for the company? Epicor's ERP solutions are discrete, precise and tailor-made for the manufacturing industry. So they are ideally suited for the same. These solutions are made such that they help maintain product quality, time accuracy and even handle economic fluctuations. Epicor solutions handle the problems faced by manufacturing industry efficiently; be it reduction of cost or help staying competitive. SAP is ideally suited for Response Manufacturing, Production Network and Production Operations Management. It helps manufacturing units automate important processes meant to be integrated in the production line in a manner that enables product variants in lot sizes. The software helps change product variants change automatically, easily and quickly. Q 2: ERP Vendor Platform independence Location independence Loose coupling across application services Reduction hardware acquisition costs SAP This does not require any platform since it is independent of it. This is unlike Windows 7 and Windows Vista and is not meant for home user. This also is location-independent and can be remotely controlled. Loosely coupled and asynchronous web services and stateless communication enable SAP to be a business functionality recommendation. All this involves meticulous web architectural details and permutations. Many intricate features working in tandem with each other help it accomplish the functionality. The acquisition cost is low and so is operational cost. It offers reduced complexity, improved user productivity and less complexity in cost and administration. Oracle The main feature of Oracle design is service orientation. This is one reason why it offers a simple interface, thus removing architectural complexities, normally found in other solution; more or less. As a result of this Oracle interface is pretty simple to use. Ideal for data retrieval from geographies that are heterogeneous in nature. The best part is that it reduces the problem of storage complexity and helps users’ access data in a faster and efficient manner. This is largely policy-driven and is ideal coupling platform between service clients and business services. The approach that it uses is configuration-based in order to either develop SOA assets or deploy SOA. The best part of Oracle is that it allows consolidation and reduces cost, while ensuring that it delivers high quality service. Microsoft Dynamics It is one platform that takes extremely short time to execute requirements. Unique feature of this platform is that it is able to separate platform-independent development from platform-dependent development. This helps user specify the application behaviour. The technology that supports it helps retrieve data from a central location. It can be loosely coupled, and independently deployed, updated and developed. Helps optimize costs since it incorporates an approach that is holistic. Avoidance of server sprawls is the greatest benefit in this since it consolidates servers and re-architectures environment by building a private cloud and optimizing databases. This reduces cost drastically. Q 3: Epicor Signature Methodology This methodology was launched in February 2014. This has come as a boon to the manufacturers who are able to leverage greater benefits from it. Developed by incorporating a five-step model, Epicor Signature Methodology, can be scaled based on complexity and size of the project (Panorama Consulting Solutions, 2014). 1. Major tasks and their sequence As remarked this is built on a five-step process, each step working in association with the rest and capable of taking in different sets of techniques, inputs, deliverables and tools. This all happens in a very synchronized and collaborative resulting in effective governance and improvement. 2. Advantages of the methodology The greatest advantage is its flexibility that helps the deployment of solutions irrespective of where in the world clients are located. Designing and validation of the solutions happens at the same time in a manner that is scalable; thus doing away with providing one solution that fits all. Delivering consistent and repeatable deployments is all too easy for this methodology. The methodology has been made to offer clients great time-to-value. 3. Disadvantages of the methodology It is just recently that it has been launched and industry has been greatly receptive to it. As a result of this it will be too early and too naïve to comment on its shortfalls until industry reports the same. 4. Type and conditions of projects where it is suited It is capable of providing support in several projects falling with one or more of these domains: production management, financial management, planning and scheduling, supply chain management, production data management, project management, human capital management, service management, customer relation management, and sales management. On account of being scalable, it can actually fit into many projects. References Epicor. 2014. Epicor: Business Inspired. [ONLINE] Available at: http:// http://www.epicor.com/. [Accessed 04 September 15]. Infor. 2015. Beautiful software for your business processes. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.infor.com/. [Accessed 04 September 15]. SAP. 2015. SAP TechEd 2015: Simplify your IT. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.sap.com/. [Accessed 04 September 15]. Erpsoftware360. 2015. Top 5 Client/Server ERP Software Applications. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.erpsoftware360.com/erp-software.htm. [Accessed 04 September 15]. Panorama Consulting Solutions. 2014. Epicor launches enhanced Signature methodology and expands best-in-class software services. [ONLINE] Available at: http://panorama-consulting.com/epicor-launches-enhanced-signature-methodology-and-expands-best-in-class-software-services-to-drive-erp-implementations/. [Accessed 04 September 15]. Read More