Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) University 2008 Certification Certified Financial Planner Portfolio management - Question Paper

the quality standards agreed on at the time of entering into the contract. If not the material should be returned, and depending on
the works schedule, option arrangements should be thought of, if the identical supplier is unable to rectify the material. Care
should be taken to see that the project does not fail on account of poor quality materials and equipment.
part E: Caselets
Caselet 1
6. The range of areas in which the companies’ contemplate for the successful implementation of ERP projects are as follows:
Integration
Usually top level managers are unable to estimate the efforts needed by their staff in areas affected by the implementation of
the ERP systems. This could be achieved by setting up the full time team, filling the vacant positions, allocating budget to the
teams and providing essential trainings to make them understand as elaborate expected out of them.
Scope
Most of the ERP projects' implementations take more time and budget than expected because of the change in the scope of the
project. The biggest cause why an ERP project fails is because the organizations are unable to reconcile the technological
necessities of the system with their own business needs. The ERP system imposes its own login on the company's strategy,
organization and culture and if the definite scope is not articulated in the system early in the project, the ERP system will
drive the company towards full integration of the ERP even though a certain degree of business unit segregation might be the
solution. The scope affects not only the number of modules to be implemented but also the functional units, the number of
sites in which the system is to be implemented.
Time
Time is directly affected by the length of the implementation; hence time could be substantially decreased by reducing the
number of packages that need the customization. A typical ERP implementation may take 2 to 3 years whereas larger
ones could be stretched to 5 years. Moreover many systems are not user friendly, hence considerable more time is needed
to establish rules and training employees to follow them.
Cost
The total cost of implementing ERP project includes the cost of licensing, training, implementation, maintenance,
customization and hardware requirements, but still there are several hidden costs. ERP project's cost depends on the
functionalities of the system and the number of users who access it. ERP projects require investing in the transfer of data, in
modifying the existing data and in the maintenance of the networking and infrastructure. The cost on training encounters the

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