Assignment:
ERP Case Study: Green Rabbit
Once upon a time, two friends launched a candy wholesale business. Then, they ran into a problem: shipping melt-prone chocolate bars during summer months. After the pals designed a heat-sensitive supply chain, other food companies turned to them for help. The duo rebranded as Green Rabbit, a supply chain logistics provider specializing in fast delivery of perishable goods.
That shift in strategy tested the company's current processes, which relied on QuickBooks, Excel and email. Green Rabbit's multiple databases couldn't communicate with one another, making real-time data analysis impossible.
The warehouse was often waiting on help from the IT team, too.
Green Rabbit chose NetSuite ERP, and the NetSuite professional services team got the company up and running on the system in three months.
Green Rabbit now:
? Helps customers ship candy, snacks and more across the country in 24 hours from one of three different warehouses, without inventory errors.
? Delivers tens of thousands of orders per day, without delays.
? Gets guaranteed error-free data from its ERP system, instead of risking errors from manually entered data.
? Could triple its order volume, if desired, without impact to its systems.
Key takeaways
? When implemented correctly, ERP makes it easier to manage a complicated supply chain, as Green Rabbit's case study shows.
? ERP is pivotal to growth. Green Rabbit implemented ERP after it grew substantially and because it anticipated further expansion Many growing companies like those profiled here ask: "What is the business case for ERP?"
Besides the takeaways from our case studies, it boils down to agility. When finance teams stop peering at dozens of spreadsheets and paper records, they can get strategic. By helping executive and business colleagues visualize data, growing firms can forecast future trends and adapt quickly to beat competitors.
Walmart Case Study
Walmart is one of the top ten largest companies in the United States by market capitalization. Sales for the company are around $500 billion annually, which nearly doubles that of its closest retail competitor Amazon. The company operates globally with brick and mortar supercenters, discount stores, and neighborhood markets. It owns hundreds of brands, including the well known Sam's Club. To successfully keep its shelves stocked it works with thousands of suppliers. Its e-commerce business is also a behemoth, with a long list of online seller partnerships. The sheer size of Walmart's business is one of its greatest advantages, but also challenges when it comes to ERP.
Walmart works with many ERP providers. In 2018 however, it announced a strategic partnership for building out a digital transformation through Microsoft Azure. Expectations for the Microsoft Azure relationship include:
? Plans for building out a cloud-based enterprise system that serves as the framework for managing all of its resources
? The capability to plug-in existing ERP applications to the Microsoft Azure framework
? Integration of Microsoft 365
? Broader and more efficient opportunities for e-commerce
? Broader opportunities for automated warehousing capabilities
? Use of artificial intelligence for supplier relationships
? Integration with SAP Hana and other legacy inventory management solutions
? Integration with blockchain-based solutions that are evolving