ERP in Bangladesh: Enterprise system promises to greatly change four dimensions of business: firm structure, management process, technology platform, and business capability. At present in Bangladesh, companies can use ERP to support organizational structures that were not previously possible or to create a more disciplined organizational culture. The working force or the employees in the country are not technologically sound enough to get adapted with ERP at this moment, which is a great constraint in ERP investment.
But effective measures like training, organizational development, proper management and education can be helpful in the development of the digital firms in the country. Companies Using ERP in Bangladesh: At present there are several companies in the country using ERP. It has become an increasing trend among the large companies. Some familiar companies in Bangladesh using ERPs are: CompanyBusiness typeERP Name BOCOxygen gas supplierSAP AktelTelecomSAP Grameen PhoneTelecomOracle Finance BanglalinkTelecomOracle Finance AventisPharmaceuticalsSAP
KeyaCosmeticsMatrix OtobiFurnitureIFS ExpiditorsFreight & forwardingMicrosoft Dynamics Dhaka BankBankingFinacol Performances after ERP investment: We have discussed earlier that it takes about three to five years to fully implement all of the organizational and technology changes required by an enterprise system. The benefits of ERP implementation starts to accrue in an average of 31 months (McAfee, 1999; O’leary, 2000). The companies of Bangladesh mentioned above are in a transition phase of implementing ERP in their organizations.
They have invested ERP recently. Among the above mentioned business groups ‘Padma Groups’ has invested ERP in just 2 months ago. BRAC-Aarong, Daffodil Group, Ambee Pharmaceuticals, Flora Ltd. has invested within one or two years. So it is not the very right time to measure their performances as ERP investor. In doing this report we found that the organizations are fighting to make it employees adapted with the ERP. There are information chains every where and both technical and non-technical employees are in a phase of transition. Future of ERP in Bangladesh:
ERP cannot be all things to all people despite strong allegiances to some ERP products. At best it introduces wonderful integration and best practice and business has learnt how good that is. Business and ERP vendors need to learn that ERP systems must have some development tools of its own that allow users easy changes to adapt software to user needs. This keeps integration as a major goal. A vital asset when information based on one system is desired, that is reliable, accurate and time consuming. Investment in ERP used to be a long term strategic vision.
Organizations need to focus on core competencies that will impact top/bottom line growth. ERP vendors need to recognize such and develop SOP standards that are compatible across multiple application agnostic of vendor. This would present a huge value proposition to organizations intending to pick and choose best of breed applications on a subscription based model to sustain peaks and valleys in business demand to consistent margins and achieve business goals. This model reduces the huge overhead that ERP implementation and support bears on an organization year after years.
ERP Involves In Singer Bangladesh Limited: •Project Planning, •Business and Operational Analysis, •Business Process Re-engineering (BRP), •Installation and Configuration, •Project Team Training, •Business Requirements Mapping to Software, •Module Configuration, •System Modification and Interfaces, •Data Conversion, •End User Training, •Acceptance Testing, & •Post Implementation Audit/Support. Scope of ERP System in SINGER Bangladesh Limited: SINGER Bangladesh Ltd was established in 1905. More then 100 year’s ago they started their journey in Bangladesh.
Aarong has identified three basic constraints for gainful employment of the low income and marginalized people in the rural areas. These are – lack of working capital, marketing support and opportunity for skills development, it provides a wide range of services to alleviate the following problems: •Spot payment on product delivery to encourage efficiency and productivity, •Reach out to producers in remote areas to ensure fair value for their efforts, •Marketing communication and information for artisans , •Advances against purchase orders where necessary, Training & Education in skills development to raise product quality and marketability, •Product Design and Support in Product Development, •Quality Control to increase producer awareness of the importance of quality, To implement their objectives like spot payment and marketing communication SINGER has invested ERP in their cooperation. They also use the technology of IFS which has brought about a positive change in their performance. They have different sources of suppliers, manufacturers, from different corner of the country.
In some remote places they are not well connected with the main office as ERP advantages are not available there. But in some areas nearby the capital Dhaka, they belong to a part of the chain. ERP has accelerated the pace of supply chain as well as marketing and support services. Overview of Current IT System of SINGER Bangladesh Ltd. About Ten years ago SINGER Bangladesh Ltd first time introduce IT system in its organization. There are more than 50 computers in the BMO. At present network infrastructure is suffering from various limitation with its back dated equipments, which had been decided to be extended soon.
The functions of Electronic Data Processing Departments are: 1. Maintenance of computer hardware and software. 2. To incorporate VAT related information. 3. Supports the Sales Accounts Department in preparing the reports. 4. Prepare some special reports such as unit sales report (shop and item wise) weekly or monthly. 5. Mail the shop performance report to each District Manager & each Area Manager. 6. Internal computer operation between employees to share data instantly. Shortly MIS section will bring online transaction system in action by implementing ERP systems.
This system will connect all the outlets together by which each concerned department can get idea about shops instantly and real time transaction will be recorded instantly. They started FoxPro based IT system in their organization initially which is still in operation. They are using FoxPro-2. 6 version. It is only used in their corporate office. This is not very efficient system up to the present requirement. FoxPro is DOS based system. And the limitation of DOS is incompatibility with modern IT applications. Day by day IT system is developing.
Due to increasing demand and complexities, the system is failing to provide required information to the management in shortest time. It also fails in responding to required auditing demand. FoxPro is a technology which is being updated by the vendors according to day to day demand that are not being adopted by SINGER Bangladesh as required. Figure IT Bridges Information Gaps Networking system in SINGER Bangladesh Ltd. is not very well. Networking infrastructure was last developed 10 years ago, which is unable to comply modern needs being low in speed. As current IT system is limited in use by limited human resource.
Most of people are not familiar with IT system. They used only processed data. So International Management of SINGER decided to set modern IT system up in over all system infrastructures. In accordance, ERP by IFS (Industrial & Financial System) is decided to be installed in entire infrastructure which is currently under up gradation. The currently using servers are Linux for Gateway and internet, Windows 2003 server, for ERP testing, Novel for FoxPro based database and Windows WP for others client PCS , “Samba” , a feature of Linux is using for documents sharing.
Currently used applications are Customized software for Call center operation (PHP, MySQL), Employee loan Management software (Oracle9i, Developer6i) and others standard packages like MS office, Photoshop, Antivirus etc. ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) is a new division in SINGER Bangladesh Ltd, which deals with computerized financial data transaction within the organization. After first successful implementation in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Thailand are under process of adopting ERP, in continuation Bangladesh is heading to same IT platform.
Singer Bangladesh had been decided to implement three modules primarily, these are- •Hire purchase (HP) •Accounts •Inventory Upcoming ERP having following software and Hardware: Figure No. (2. 6): ERP Software and Hardware So it is a big challenge for SINGER Bangladesh to train all human resource for up coming ERP system. Singer Bangladesh Limited has signed an agreement with Swedish company Industrial & Financial Systems (IFS) to implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application in Dhaka on January 14, 2007. Vice President – Singer Corporation and Chairman & Managing Director of Singer Bangladesh Limited Mr.
Mahbub Jamil and Vice President of IFS South Asia Mr. Jayantha De Silva signed the agreement on behalf of their respective companies in Dhaka. Among others Singer Management Committee Members, Officials of IFS and Officials ICE Technologies – local agent of IFS, attended the agreement signing ceremony. The project implementation cost is approximately Tk 80 million. IFS are one of the world’s leading providers of component-based business software developed using open standards. Since 1983, IFS has been a provider of business applications focused on meeting the needs of selected industries.
Evaluation of IT Skill of ERP end user of SINGER Bangladesh Ltd. Very first, Singer needs to know who the end users of the company are. There are 300-350 outlets of Singer with more than 600 employees working in these offices. These stuffs are considered as “end user”. Studying the academic background of the employee in SINGER Bangladesh, I revealed that majority are non-technical graduate. They even have very little knowledge about computer usages. So it is unrealistic familiarizing ERP without basic of computers. There are only 50 computers in BMO for executives only.
All the documentation in other departments and outlets are of traditional paper based system. The management even was not aware of computer literacy of company’s employees previously. So it is more challenging to adopt ERP with the end user without least computer knowledge. In singer, the employees are ignorant in uses of computers. Many of them had never even have touched any of the computer accessories. My evaluation is implementing ERP will be a big challenge with this much depth of computer literacy of the fellow employees of Singer Bangladesh Ltd.
Steps Taken to Make Awareness regarding ERP System of SINGER Bangladesh Ltd. ERP Stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is a software system implemented in an organization, to increase productivity and enable efficient utilization of resources. An ERP system, if properly implemented can do wonders for the organization. But if the implementation fails, its outcome is drastic. ERP Software helps to manage the resources in a tightly integrated environment. The benefits of a properly implemented ERP system are numerous.
Each activity can be monitored and will be reflected in the financial results. More, accurate decisions can be made. Production can be controlled and redundant inventory can be avoided. Implementation of ERP assumes a greater focus in this context. It calls for the total cooperation from the staff and the implementation team. Many organizations are reluctant to leave their old system to adopt the new system. Implementation team should be able to convince the benefits of the new ERP system, and should explain the solution in its totality.
All the data should be entered in a dummy server first. Once the client is properly trained on the new system, it can be transferred to the live server where the actual ERP system resides. This dummy server is the exact replica of the original server where the original data resides. Training the end users is also the responsibility of the implementation team. They have to see that the trainees are getting the system properly. Ultimately, they are going to use the system. Lack of proper training can lead to the failure of the system.
For ERP implementation purpose Singer Bangladesh Ltd take their fist step: 1. Training the staffs (End User): As it is mentioned that the end users are little familiar with computer application, management of Singer Bangladesh has planned to train them up. In accordance to that they have arranged two training session. 2. Pre-ERP Training: This session is arranged to make the end users familiarized with computers and train them about the basic of Computers such as- basic computer hardware, software, operating system, concept of networking, internet etc. his session has been completed very recently successfully. 3. Post-ERP Training: This module will be held after the installation of ERP. This session will be structured to train the end user how to use ERP in everyday business operation. In doing that Implementation Team is planning to assess the need based IT skills requirement first. That means to be initiated with ERP system how much an employee should know about the computer applications. In working with ERP, an employee must know the following:
