"Sample Research Proposal on The effects of Internet on Supply Chain Management and Enterprise Resource Planning

This paper is a discussion of the effects of the internet on a company's supply chain management and the enterprise resource management. It presents the implications of technology advancements such as the internet in terms of efficiency and productivity.  Furthermore, it includes some insights on the various areas underlying the topics stated.   In a fast changing environment, greater pressures are faced by businesses to meet the demand of the consumers. The advent of internet and web based applications has brought in great impact in businesses in terms of convenient communication systems. With this growing trend, the supply chain in firms and business are likely to increase productivity in the next five years. Advancement in technologies paves the way for more efficient coordination, planning and strategizing.     The growth of internet is attributed to technological change. According to the Moore's Law, 'the processing power of the transistor chip double every 18 months and thus technological change drives costs down'. On the other hand, Gilder Law states that in the future the costs of communication will reduced while the speed will double. More so, users are offered with increasing options with the emergence of new software applications prompted by the market expansion (Nicholas & Rowlands, 1999).   The implication of this is that the internet can provide and serve diverse functions while lowering the costs for businesses. The pervasion and benefits of internet in a business supply chain in particular is perceived by manufacturers as a positive impact. 'E-commerce' and 'E-business' are now used as business strategies to advertise and sell products.  Many companies believe that these new forms of business strategies improve productivity and are less costly. For these reasons, the usage of internet as a tool for purchasing, advertising and information gathering has increase and is expected to even expand. It provides opportunities for collaboration among suppliers and manufacturers as well as means to develop customer relationships (Zank, G., 2003).     Managing the Supply Chain   A company's supply chain involves all the aspects that are utilized in turning a material into product from the supplier to the consumer. It is a coordinated system of organizations, people, activities, information and resources that are essential in producing a product. The ability to facilitate and utilize the supply chain in the most effective means is important for every business. Thus, a supply chain management is undertaken to facilitate the process the operations of the supply chain in the goal of bringing satisfactory outputs to the consumers.   Managing the supply chain entails understanding the factors that underlies it. It involves the processes from the distribution of suppliers for materials, distribution strategy and valuable information such as demand forecasts. Basically, supply chain management is about management of raw materials and their shift to finish products towards the consumer. However, with the complex task of SCM and the increasing demand from consumers, most corporations outsourced this function to other company. In effect, corporations are able to satisfy their consumer needs while reducing the management functions at their hands. The development of supply can be attributed to the development of supply chain networks.  Collaborative work between business partners is considered a significant factor in achieving success. Additionally, the onset of technological advancements had resulted to the reduction of communication cost, thus improving the coordination among members of the supply chain network.   Impact of Internet on Supply Chain Management   For Supply Management Chain Management to be successful, individual function needs to be integrated. This requires a collaborative work between the buyers and suppliers through shared information. The customers are provided information of the product and its availability through the company's interface. This process simplifies the transaction between the consumer and the manufacturer. Also, the need to coordinate with suppliers is facilitated through communication systems such as the internet linkages (Wikipedia, 2007).   Through the use of internet, manufacturers can have a fast access to data that can be used in every aspect of production. These network strategies can be helpful in improving the supply chain within an enterprise. Raw data can be transformed to manufacturing information through networking. The visibility to the company's processes would help reduce the work in marketing, improve quality and lower costs. With a networked supply chain, an industry can have a strong advantage over its competitors ('Smart Supply Solutions', 2007).   The entire organizations rely on the information in terms of customer service, procurement, distribution and product development. In this regard, the availability of information relevant to the operation is greatly important. Wrong data and discrepancies of information may cost the company extremely. Based on the Bullwhip effect, information distortion occurs in the supply chain as the data passes from one to another. Consequently, the companies are misguided with the wrong information that is vital to the operation. The data which is unreliable is utilized in arriving at production decisions. With the inaccuracy of the information, the company is subject to making poor decisions that may cause displeasure to them (Lee, 2002). Moreover, the proper positioning of inventory and other resources of the supply chain is critical in forecasting demands. The tendency to make safety stocks is caused by the errors in forecasts. Supply chain managers need to facilitate better information to position inventory properly and reduce costs (Wikipedia, 2007).   Understanding the demand of the consumers is a must for a smooth flow of the supply chain. As cited above, poor forecasts deter the company's ability to meet the demands of their consumers. If such incidences occur, there is the compelling need to figure out what causes it. Secondly,   misleading information should be avoided by adopting communication systems towards proper coordination and planning. Hence, the visibility of accurate data is crucial in the supply chain. The diversity of internet is used to perform this function. Over the years it has been an important tool in integrating information within an organization and continuously do so at present.  Consumer's demand can be integrated with the supply chain through data analysis to come up with the best integrated plans. The analysis can be facilitated through acquisition of data from various resources.  Again, the internet provides a great venue for data transfer and analysis such this.  Another valuable function served by internet is being a tool for sales channel. Access to point sale data is made easy and the instantaneous changes in price and promotion. It also provides a venue for customer ordering. Ultimately, the internet setting can facilitate supply chain with the accessibility and ease in coordinating to the aspects of the organization (Lee, 2007).   Indeed, the internet has become a powerful tool in meeting the needs and demand of customers with precision. Companies are taking advantage of this technology to enable them to cope with the complexities of the demand and supply (Redfield, 2002). More so, they become more efficient in coordinating with their suppliers and in monitoring conditions that will affect the management of the supply chain. For the next five years, the internet technology will give rise to more innovative and sophisticated tools that would further enhance the communication system among companies. This would have a great impact in the management of the supply chain. Data storage and integration will be less of a problem since the internet can provide accessible venues for data transfer and usage. Additionally, corporations will rely on outsourcing companies to facilitate this task. And thus, companies offering these services would dramatically increase. The corporations on the other hand could focus their effort in improving customer responsiveness. Better services can be expected by the consumers from the companies with the onset of an improved supply chain management. Business and client communication will be more open and dynamic. In this way, the company can assessed the changing demands of consumers and find solutions to address it.     On Enterprise Resource Planning                                             The smooth flow of the supply chain management is contributed by an enterprise resource planning system. Basically, a company relies on ERP systems in terms of data integration and the unified system for the entire organization. In ERP, the operation is simplified with the integration of systems. It is a single package that covers two or more systems and functions to eliminate external interfaces. Typically, a company benefits from this system with the standardization and lower maintenance.  A database serves as the means for data storage, transfer and integration within the entire organizational process.      For the Supply Chain management, the ERP will include information such as inventory, orders, purchasing, supply chain planning, scheduling. Before ERP systems are introduced, the procedure was a computer system for each department in an organization. Each department would have an independent system that would include information limited or connected to them. In this process, the data is communicated in reliance of each of the system. Thus, the access to information is restricted to the department assigned to it. But with the advent of ERP, data were combined to a database that leads to a standardized system. The complexities associated to the use of ERP software systems results to a significant amount of changes in the practices of work staff. However, the implementation of such requires the skill of ERP specialist and it necessitates the employment of consultants as well. This undertaking can cause a length of time depending on the size of the organization to which it is implemented. Moreover, consulting companies are the ones to implement ERP systems since it is not an in-house skill.  The company seeks these services depending on what they need for their ERP. The purpose could be for consultation in which case the ERP firm will be responsible for the initial implementation of the company's ERP.  Secondly is for Customization Services whereby the company seeks to extend or change the way their existing ERP works. And lastly is for maintenance and support services in which the company reaches a support agreement for assistance and training of their staff in running the system (Wikipedia, 2007). Ultimately, an ERP system brings forth convenience and ease for the company with regard to data coordination. The deployment of integrated processes to transform and enterprise is what the ERP systems support. It is the key enabler in the transformation of the company's processes. At present, upgrades on software are adopted to leverage internet by most private sector firms. The improvement in this ERP software paves the way for a more efficient and greater collaboration in regards to data sharing and integration with the company's suppliers, customers and business partners.    Other functions such as customer relationship management and supplier relationship management have also led to an increase in collaboration and visibility. For these reasons, even the public sector is opening its doors with the use of ERP systems but its information is limited. The operational area by which the system integrates its data includes manufacturing, distribution and sales. These areas are crucial in the overall productivity of the company. Through the accessibility to reliable data in these areas, the company could make better forecast on their weaknesses and will come up with speedy solutions. Aside from this, manufacturers can introduce a new product in the market quickly and can eliminate products that are slow moving. On the suppliers' part, the task involved collaboration and planning to make the products available in the market (Ward, 2006).   However, the fast paced business environment requires the system vendors to come up with the more sophisticated software to cope up with the much needed points for a better performance in the supply-chain. In the coming years, integration can be expected to be easier. Collaboration among and within the supply chain has become an integral part of every application. The existing technology may be obsolete in the next few years and businesses processes would continue to seek new supply-chain technologies. Companies would have to work with their technology suppliers to build more diversified networks (Foster, 2004). The fact pace of innovation will entail the development of data standards that will enable real time exchange of information. As what the internet technology has brought in the last decade, it will continue to expand to greater horizons. Furthermore, web innovations within the coming years may cause the movement of all the supply chain application to a network. In this eventuality, provider for applications will suffer lesser economic value. Web based application are now used to expose data to supply chain partners and enable them to act on it (Foster, 2004).   Role of Operational Managers   In this day of globalization, companies are taking advantage of the innovations brought about by technologies. The challenge of meeting or even the surpassing the consumer demands is made easier through these advancements such as the internet. As most companies rely on internet and web based services for their operations, it is the manager's role to seek the most effective means to increase productivity.  Primarily, his undertaking is to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the business operations. The operational managers play a pivotal role in the improvement of operational processes within a company. Part of their responsibility is to adapt changes that a company necessitates to achieve competitiveness. While increase pressure may be put on them, the ability to analyze the company's needs and its employees is a key factor. More so, the ability to establish a direction for the organization is another factor. The potential success of an organization lies on achieving its primary goals. With this in mind, the operational managers will have to seek the most effective means towards those goals and adopt innovations if necessary. The employees' skills and potentials is another determinant for success.  Managers must be driven to success by educating their employees through the right tools. Collaboration among them is necessary to implement and facilitate changes within the company. The manager must possess the ability to listen to the employees and motivate them to support any project. Both of them must be involve in the solution to accept and take part of any changes in the operational process. Like in adapting an enterprise resource planning system, the managers should involve its employees in training for the new design. By way of this, they can be prepared for the process and do business with it. It also gives them a sense of responsibility as they become oriented with the new processes to be followed upon the implementation of the new system (Ward, 2006).   Furthermore, managers should be concerned with the impact of e-commerce in relation to supply chain management. Analysis of the possibilities and opportunities offered by e-commerce should be undertaken to know how it foster relationships between and among manufacturers, suppliers and the customers. Likewise, they need to understand the needs of their supply chain partners as well as their potential. And lastly, the managers should quantify the costs and benefits with regards to the supply chain management.