Operations and Enterprise Resource Planning - Essay Example

Operations and processes within Oxfam By al Affiliation Department Oxfam’s mission to assist victims of natural disasters comes with the heavy reliance on volunteers and public donations. Additionally, Oxfam must demonstrate transparency and accountability and adhere to government and disclosure requirements. Normally, Oxfam uses a typical financial solutions and a simplified management of donations and reporting through excel. Currently, Oxfam seeks to dispatch emergency supplies to over 4.46 million people in three affected areas. The unpredictability of emergency and disasters require contingency operations and planning in response while publicity campaigns are required to raise funds urgently. However, Oxfam seeks to ensure that no aid is lost based on past experiences. In order to manage its operations, the recommendation is Systems Applications and Products. SAP Business ByDesign will offer a solution to the best i to Oxfam’s operations and enterprise resource planning. Using this solution, SAP business ByDesign will offer accounting and financial support, processes and distribution, CRM, reporting and administration. SAP business ByDesign offers financial accounting, banking, budgeting, and financial reporting; and web-oriented customer management, sales opportunity, customer support, and Microsoft outlook integration. In operations, SAP Business ByDesign offers inventory management and production planning, while reporting and administration involve automatic alerts, dashboard reports, and customization and incorporation. Through the integration of this and other services, Oxfam will obtain one precise source of each of its critical data for the entire organization. Additionally, the software will enhance the organization’s donors and volunteer-base through web oriented CRM and e-commerce abilities. Additionally, Oxfam’s publicity campaign implementation will take a proactive approach through workflows, automatic alerts, and effective response to the needs of its customers and events. For a user friendly, responsive, and robust system, I recommend SAP supply chain management (SAP SCM). This application will assist Oxfam in its disaster management through adapting specific organization’s supply chain processes, especially given the fast changing and unpredictable environment, given that the specific level of disaster is normally unknown for most emergency and disaster cases. However, Oxfam has to ensure that none of the aid taken to the hit areas goes to waste and this means that real-time data can be obtained. The implication of using SAP ByDesign is so as to ensure that Oxfam operation and supply chain teams attain visibility essential to track the delivery of items with prolonged lead time. This will assist in the reduction of costs while ensuring that the working capital and inventory levels are optimized. Additionally, the SAP SCM will assist in the elevating the loyalty and satisfaction of the victims despite of there being other charity organizations to their aid. For Oxfam to effectively differentiate itself from other charities, I recommend adopting the power of a single integrated application in SAP SCM. When discussing about Oxfam, the instinctive focus is on the reception of aid and aid and volunteer distribution. Through the use of supply chain management, it is possible to develop distribution channels and forecast demand such that the sales team can know the present inventory, the distribution time, and the reorder level. Through viewing their product lines, managers can send precise demand estimates to the procurement team for purchases or material donations. Additionally, information regarding demand estimates can be used by the marketing team mobilize donors for additional funding. Since Oxfam may in some instances work with partners to manage disasters and emergencies, it is crucial to define a unique supply chain that allows centralization of processes such that the costs are closely and effectively managed. In this case, managing the supply chain must also include managing partners’ relationships and financials issued to partners. This way, Oxfam will manage to operate adaptive and well managed strategy for its supply chain while allowing Oxfam to add new partners or remove old partners. New partners can be added and production continues optimally with the demands of the new partners in place. For instance, Oxfam can partner with Samar, Northern Cebu, and Leyte partners to ensure these new distribution outlets satisfy consumer needs in such locations. Through partnerships, supply chain managers will manage to balance the agility of their supply chain and operating costs against the fluctuating consumer demands. Optimizing the supply chain in Oxfam will also provide an effective way of optimizing resources through processes that facilitate continued solution of critical issues, including the location of warehouses and warehouse allocation such that the interests of victims are met in the best possible way. During the delivery of all its services, Oxfam needs to optimize the flow of information among various business functions within it while managing the connection to external stakeholders. An integrated system is thus needed such that all required information is presented on a real time basis. In this case, the functions to be present in the integrated system are financial accounting, colour human resource, logistics information system, business warehousing, customer relationship management, and supply chain management. Through SAP business ByDesign Supply Chain Management module, Oxfam charity will benefit from a solution that brings together all the capabilities needed to efficiently plan for its aid and the distribution of such aid into locations where it is needed. A shared database will support all applications through storing relevant data, information, and knowledge. In addition, using the supply chain module means that changing emergency locations can easily and quickly be responded to as material flow, demand and supply management, and collaboration with partners, volunteers, and disaster victims is optimized. This is made possible through the fact that a common database allows data sharing, integration, security, independence, and abstraction. This database attributes are crucial for processes such as aid order processing, distribution, and reorder through campaign. For Oxfam, the right ICT infrastructure coupled with the SCM module will also facilitate front-end customer systems, and secure communication channels for any communications (Beynon-Davies, 2013). For the management, the system will facilitate real time knowledge of all that is going on from aid order processing to delivery through querying the database that then generates reports, and use them for decisions such as campaign planning for donations. Basically, SAP SCM will assist Oxfam to attain a clearer view of its layouts and networks. In addition, the creation of a shared database facilitates the creation of master data that assists in the attainment of transparency. SAP Business ByDesign financials and marketing modules are not satisfactory for Oxfam. Evidently, Oxfam needs donations from the public and marketing is very crucial for the development of campaigns. In addition, the financial module is crucial to account for financial donations. However, the financial module only deals with the management of the accounts of the various departments, standards of reporting, and currencies. This does not assist with the mission of Oxfam, which is delivering aid to disaster hit areas. Most of the aid is in material form and has to be transported to different locations. Since aid is not part of Oxfam’s assets, managing it using financial and management accounting module is impossible since only fixed assets and inventory accounting are accurately evaluated here. The marketing module falls under customer relationship management and can only effectively deal with activities such as campaigns, lead creation, and qualification, and hand-off to sales. At Oxfam, deals with not sales since the aid is issued to the affected families free of charge. Additionally, campaigns to obtain donations are not sufficient to guaranteeing that aid is delivered to the customers, especially now that there is an Oxfam ship to be released to deliver aid to the three affected areas. It is for these drawbacks and the fact that SAP SCM is the most crucial module in bridging the gap between supply chain planning and execution using seamless communication and information integration. In addition, SCM tools are associated with a real time transparency level that allows on-time and immediate action, hence efficiency. Bibliography Beynon-Davies. (2013). Business Information Systems. Oxford: MacMillan Hueber. Read More