Can Two Businesses Ever Be the Different Using Identical Software - Assignment Example

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) blueprints include hundreds of diverse business processes, and in search of certainty among numerous uncertain alternatives, businesses decide to alter their processes. The aim is to obtain success by adopting new ways of implementing processes and significantly departing from former and less effective ways. An ERP blueprint helps shape business processes that not only support business today but that will support future business processes that align with their industry of operation.

For instance, an automobile firm has to search for blueprints customized for the auto parts industry (7-3). 2. How competitive pressure among ERP vendors will cause ERP solutions to become commodities and what this means to the ERP software industryThe term commodity is used on ERP processes or systems similarly and is identified as produced by different companies. Consequently, many ERP providers result in the loss of organization uniqueness, thus requiring them to seek for competitive advantage to endure market pressure.

For the ERP software industry, achieving a competitive advantage may involve training users, reducing costs, or enhancing the program such that it is customizable to customer needs. 3. Suppose two businesses use similar processes and identical software, can they be different? Yes. The two companies can gain a competitive advantage over each other depending on how each company decides to use the solutions to its own gain thereby becoming different. At this point, key aspects of differentiation include embracing planning and execution, and training (7-21).

In addition, it is possible for one company to differentiate itself through better execution its functional areas through enterprise application architecture. Execution of ERP solutions will mean supporting organizational-wide process integration and coordination (7-20) 4. The implication of ERP Software vendor as a conduit to transfer innovation In order to attain innovation, there has to be a mechanism of continuous improvements and disruptive innovation. To achieve the innovation goal, ERP vendors use their process of upgrading version.

Consequently, software companies strive to remain competitive by remaining up-to-date with vendors’ greatest and latest developments. For the software industry, leveraging economies of attending numerous businesses in one industry, and across nearly all industries offer distinctive perspective and positioning for the vendors while boasting their sophisticated innovations to potential customers based on their delivery frequency. Some sources of product and process innovations include internal research and development, consulting companies, competitors, customers, and third-party software firms.

To the industry, sophisticated ERP products will face barriers such as transition problems and employee resistance that will result in additional implementation costs (7-33). 5. Can two businesses ever be the same? Since business applications are not customized to fit a specific organization, the way two similar firms integrate their activities across departments and the level of knowledge of the key personnel determine success or failure by how much it saves substantial costs, time and agony of the design process (7-24).