Description
Paper 4: ERP
CONTENTS
Word count:
1000 to 1200 words.
To get an A, your paper needs to have no wasted words. Every sentence should contain high impact information. Please allow 3 weeks for grading.
Please do not use bullet points. Each paper is required to have a total of 1000 to 1200 words to qualify for an A grade. Some students are very good at writing concisely and succinctly. This allows them to write the answer in 1000 words. Some students are more “wordy” and so they may need 1200 words to write the same answer. You need to know which one you are and use the appropriate number of words. The upper limit for each paper is 1200 words. You will lose 10% for every 50 words over the upper limit. I do not need you to repeat everything there is to know about what you learned or what you think about the case. I only want the high-impact statements, the things that the CEO needs to know. I also want it to be business oriented, not academic. Cite at least 4 sources and ensure that you regularly cite your sources throughout your essay. Make sure to use industry sources. Avoid repetition to make up the word count, as this will cause you to lose marks.
Topic Categories:
ERP/SAP & Procurement
ERP/SAP & Life Cycle
ERP Process REDESIGN
ERP/SAP & Sales
ERP/SAP & Manufacturing
ERP/SAP & Implementation
ERP/SAP & Environment/Green Technology
ERP/SAP & AI
ERP/SAP & The Cloud
ERP/SAP & Security
ERP & Vendor Comparison
ERP & Consulting
Specific examples of paper topics:
Does procurement using ERP save money?
What effect does SAP have on Security in an organization”
What are the advantages of using ERP on the cloud?
IS implementation of ERP good for the environment?
Does SAP help to improve quality in manufacturing?
SOURCES
You are required to use at least 7 sources which can be:
5 industry papers + 2 academic/research papers
OR
5 academic/research papers + 2 industry papers
Include at least one ERP case study as a source.
Academic research/journal articles
Login to My AUM.
Visit scholar.google.com. Make sure to update the settings so you are using AUM in the Library Links section.
Do not search for your specific topic. You will not find anything interesting and if you do, you cannot use it. Search instead for your topic categories. Select several papers which are focused on a sub-topic.
Practitioner/Trade/Industry sources
Avoid marketing materials. Try to find White Papers, FAQs or How-To pages.
For Industry sources, you can use Google Advanced search to specify the website.
You can include site:CIO.com in your search term in order to search only CIO.com.
You can include filetype:pdf in your search term to bring back only PDF documents (technical documents).
Your industry sources should be from the following list. If it is not in the list, then you should get permission from me before using it.
Software Industry Giants:
SAP.com
IBM.com
Microsoft.com
Oracle.com
GartnerGroup.com
Business:
HBR.org
Forbes.com
WSJ.com
Linkedin.com
Technology Management:
CIO.com
Computerworld.com
Wired.com
Cioinsight.com
Bloomberg
Techcrunch
Tech.co
business-software.com
Ctovision.com
Biztechmagazine.com
Consulting Companies:
KPMG.com
Deloitte.com
PWC.com
McKinsey .com
Bain.com
EY.com
STRUCTURE
You will be using APA style and especially APA formatted citations.
Introduction (Why ERP? – This is general knowledge and you can cite the textbook and 1 or 2 of your sources).
Define each major term in your topic.
State a major problems that ERP solves.
State a general benefit of ERP.
State a challenges of ERP.
Body (Knowledge gained from reading your 7 papers)
This section will use all of the 7 sources you have located. Create a narrative that focuses on the narrow topic you are researching. Make sure that there is a clear thread running through your statements. You will probably have sub-headings.
Demi & Haddara (2018) defined ERP retirement as the act of putting in a different ERP. Demi et al. (2018) used an Egyptian case study for convenience. They said that “reasons of retirement were: wrong selection, users were not involved in the selection process”.
ERP literature tends to focus mostly on retirement of systems after they become mature (Demi & Haddara, 2018)
Conclusions (Main points from the body of your paper. What we should learn about ERP?)
Summarize what can be learned from your paper. This is the version you will present to the CEO in 5 minutes.
References
Demi, S., & Haddara, M. (2018). Do cloud ERP systems retire? An ERP lifecycle perspective. Procedia computer science, 138, 587-594.
Haddara, M., & Elragal, A. (2011). ERP lifecycle: When to retire your ERP system?. In ENTERprise Information Systems: International Conference, CENTERIS 2011, Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, October 5-7, 2011, Proceedings, Part I (pp. 168-177). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
