Enterprise Resource Planning & Enterprise Architecture - Essay Example

Other business goals include cost saving, sales order progress integration, standardizing and consistently accelerating the organization’s production processes, minimizing the resources necessary for any production process, and integrating all administrative or managerial information into Gadget Inc.’s overall corporate strategy.The overall strategic results to be met by the package and design selected as part of the responses to this RFP will include no more lost orders, eliminating the numerous errors currently made, and the accompanying inconsistencies.

The corporate organization of Gadget Inc. that the selected Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) design to be selected will need to support is as follows.In terms of applicable Quality Assurance (QA) activities, there will be a series of procedural reviews carried out by the personnel partially involved in the acquisition and implementation process of the ERP packages and EA design and approvalThe risk management requirements to be met will include a process where the Vendor’s executives identify, analyze and rank every risk noted.

Proactive risk identification measures will be put in place. Specific Business RequirementsIn order to achieve the successful integration of the ERP application and EA design in order to meet the business process improvement requirements set out above, the following requirements will need to be satisfied by the selected Vendor.A solid enterprise architectural design will be completed within two months of Vendor Contract signing.The ERP implementation will be completed within six months of Vendor Contract signing.

Gadget Inc., although it accepts that it is a relatively small enterprise, expects that each Vendor will draw up an EA design that reflects Gadget Inc.’s business requirements as expressed by the Board of Directors. Gadget Inc. will not accept duplications of previous enterprise architectures drawn up by a given Vendor for one or more different clients. This requirement will be made clear to each Vendor at the Bid Evaluation stage.Gadget Inc. has no specific preferences regarding the ERP application presented by each Vendor bidding for the Contract.

Gadget Inc. initially expects that each Vendor will present the ‘standard’ version of each vendor’s ERP application, as Gadget Inc. accepted that it is too small an enterprise to afford ‘bespoke’ ERP packages. Gadget Inc. accepts that there will need to be a measure of compromise between the features of the ‘standard’ EP package presented by each Vendor. However, it is expected that each ERP application presented by a given Vendor will reflect the EA design drawn up by that Vendor or perhaps its strategic partners.

Best and Final Offer (BAFO) ProcessGadget Inc. accepts that at least two vendors will propose ERP applications and EA designs that will meet Gadget Inc’s requirements. Gadget Inc., therefore, proposes to enter into a Best and Final Offer (BAFO) process, where each vendor that has submitted a solution that best meets the enterprise's requirements will be invited to further refine their financial terms, so as to produce for Gadget Inc. the best solution in terms of the purchase price and maintenance charges for the ERP application and EA design.