Case Study:
CampusERP - Read the case study and answer the 4 questions below.
This case illustrates the challenges in implementing an ERP system.
When Stefanie Fillers returned to university, she needed to log in to the school's new online registration system to make certain that the courses she was taking would allow her to graduate. She also wanted to waive her participation in her school's dental insurance plan. When the system crashed the day before classes began, Fillers, a second-year undergraduate student, was annoyed. But at least she knew where her classes were-unlike most first year students.
Schools like Stanford, the University of Massachusetts and Indiana University experienced problems with non functioning ERP that prevented students from finding out where their classes were among other things. At the University of Massachusetts 27,000 students experienced problems registering for classes, fmding classes and registering for financial aid in the fall of 2004. Said one UMass senior at the time: "The freshmen were going crazy because they didn't know where to go." After a couple of tense days and weeks, however, everyone eventually got their cheques and class schedules. At another university, fmancial aid was denied to 3,000 students by a buggy new ERP system, even though they had already received loan commitments. The school provided short-term loans for the cash-strapped students while the IT department and financial aid administrators scrambled to fix the complex system.
Disastrous ERP implementations have given more than a few postsecondary institutions black eyes. These recent campus meltdowns illustrate how the growing reliance on expensive ERP systems has created nightmare scenarios for some schools. In every case, the new systems were designed to centralize business processes in what has historically been a hodgepodge of discrete legacy systems. College and university administrators are drawn to ERP systems offering integrated views of fmance, HR, student records, fmancial aid, and more.
ERP implementations are difficult, even in very top-down corporate environments. Getting them to work in academic settings, which are essentially a conglomeration of decentralized fiefdoms, has been nearly impossible. Staff members in the largely autonomous departments do not like the one-size-fits-all strategy of an ERP implementation. Plus, these non-proftt organizations generally lack the talent and financial resources to create and manage a robust enterprise system. Representatives from Oracle, which dominates the higher education market for ERP, say that much of the problem results from the inexperience of college and university IT departments and their tendency to rush implementations and inadequately test the new systems.
Standardizing at Stanford
Starting in 2001, Stanford implemented student administration systems, PeopleSoft HR, OracleFinancials, and several other ancillary applications. ''In hindsight, we tried to do too much in too little time," said Randy Livingston, Stanford's vice-president of business affairs and CFO.
Years later,.users still complain that they have lower productivity with the new systems than with the previous ones, which were supported by a highly customized mainframe. Users have also had difficulty accessing critical information on a timely basis. Livingston said many transactions, such as initiating a purchase requisition or requesting a reimbursement, now take longer for users than with the previous legacy system.
Stanford has also not realized any of the projected savings the vendors promised. "We are fmding that the new ERP applications cost considerably more to support than our legacy applications," Livingston said. He does not know how much it will cost to get the enterprise systems working at acceptable user levels.
Stanford's IT department is still trying to get campus-wide buy-in for the enterprise applications, which have necessitated new ways of doing business, leading to the new systems not being used and costly customizations to keep all users satisfied. For example, Stanford's law school operates on a semester schedule, while the other six schools operate on a trimester schedule. "This means that every aspect of the student administration system needs to be configured differently for the law school," Livingston said. Within the schools, some faculty members are paid a 12-month salary; other schools pay by 9, 10, or 11 months. "The standard HR. payroll system is not designed to handle all these unusual pay schedules," Livingston said.
To resolve the issues, Livingston reorganized the IT department, which he hopes will be better able to manage the enterprise projects going forward. He also created a separate administrative systems group that reports directly to him,with responsibility for development, integration, and support of the major ERP systems.
Stanford's IT was still struggling with integrating the enterprise systems when the newly launched PeopleSoft portal crashed in 2004. The portal could not handle the load of all the returning students trying to log in to the untested Web-based system at the same time, Livingston said. Stanford was able to fix those problems relatively quickly, but Livingston and his staff continue to struggle with the enterprise projects. The university's departments remain "highly suspicious and resistant" to his efforts to standardize and centralize business processes, Livingston said.
Montclair State Sues
In 2008 Montclair State University wanted to replace its legacy systems with a new system. MSU requirements werefor a system that required minimal customization. The school spent a year developing its requirements which ended up with some 3,200 items on it. The requirements were given to vendors, including Oracle, who was awarded the contract.
Montclair State sued Oracle in 2011 over the ERP implementation. MSU's suit stated that Oracle made "intentionally false statements regarding the functionality of its base ERP system, the amount of customization that w<>uld be required, and the amount of time, resources, and personnel that the University would have to devote to the :project. Ultimately [the suit states], after missing a critical go-live deadline for the University's fmance system, Oracle sought to extort millions of dollars from the University by advising the University that it would not complete the implementation of the ... project unless the University agreed to pay millions of dollars more than the fixedfee the University and Oracle had previously agreed to." The case was settled out of court in March 2013 with no details of the settlement being released.
Cultural Hurdles
The hurdles that Stanford and other colleges and universities face with ERP systems are largely cultural ones. For instance, lean staffs and tight budgets at most campuses usually lead to a lack of proper training and systems testing. At Stanford, plenty of training was offered, but many users did not take it, Livingston said. He set up new trai.Jrilg programs, including a group of trainers who sit with users to help them learn how to do complex tasks, peti o1ic user group meetings, website and email lists that offer more help, and expert users embedded in the various departments who aid their colleagues.
Q1. How could core ERP components help improve business operations at your school?
Q2. How could extended ERP components help improve business operations at your school?
Q3. How can integrating SCM, CRM, and ERP help improve business operations at your school?
Q4.What lessons dealing with the challenges of implementing an ERP information system at your school can be learned from this case?
Your answer must be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman font (size 12), one-inch margins on all sides, APA format and also include references.