Hershey\'s Enterprise 21 Project and Nestle\'s Enterprise

HERSHEY'S ENTERPRISE 21 PROJECT AND NESTLE'S ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING IMPLEMENTATION

THE HERSHEYS' ENTERPRISE 21 PROJECT VERSES NESTLES' ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING.

Hershey's Enterprise 21 Project which was approved several years ago allowed scrapping of the software so as to process time related procedures accurately. This project was supposed to allow Hershey change and streamlined the process of business (Thompson, 2009). Hershey chose SAP which it would be complimented by transportation and planning management software and new sales software from Siebel systems, this provided the center working of the system.

Enterprise Resource Planning is a comprehensive software system which is designed to perform and manage the critical operations of an organizational function by permitting different items to come together under a single infrastructure to serve the need of each department (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2009). The main purpose of Enterprise Resource Planning systems is to eliminate data reluctance and to improve their flexibility by making the information run smoothly. It also enables data integration hence reusing of data across all the systems. Motiwalla and Thompson (2009) further explained that Enterprise Resource Planning supports real time data distribution between the functional applications. Although there are many differences between the Hershey's Enterprise 21 Project and Nestles Enterprise Resource Planning implementation, there exist some similarities as discussed below.

The Hershey's Enterprise 21 Project lacked the management understanding of the required effort for success both in organizational change and systems development. The workforce within the company changed with the project management was so devastated by the quantity of elements that must be addressed (Motiwalla, 2009). However, this left the definition of basic business processes to advisors who lack the necessary information of their business. There is evidence that Hershey believes technology and business managers supported different parts of the business therefore not pulling in the same direction. At the top level, they fail to pull the demands of the new system together so as to guide system creation that would ensure success of the whole business (Thompson, 2009)

On the other hand Nestles Enterprise Resource planning implementation has a technical problem such that a team of business executives and a few senior professionals made the majority of the decisions affecting the implementation of the new systems within the organization (Rolland, 2000). This indeed caused a lot of misunderstanding between the top level personnel and employees; the trouble is that the staff which was to use the new system rebelled even before the modules could be employed. The rebellion was not caused by forces from outside the organization but by employees due to the fact that not even one of them was represented on the stakeholders' teams besides being directly affected by the new systems (Prakash, 2000)

Furthermore, the workers did not understand how to use the new system and new processes hence confusing the division executives. The implementation team was inexperienced due to the fact that they did not know how the implementation needed to be managed (Prakash, 2000). Another similarity is based on the objective, they both insisted on maintaining organizational sales growth and outpacing growth in other industries. They also emphasize on saving millions of dollars by closing the older circulation centers and restructuring schemes and finally the use of supply chain efficiencies to help improve the gross margin up to certain level within a specified period of time.

Both projects spent a lot of time and energy despite the fact that they were likely to have a long-term profits. The project which was originally scheduled to take a shorter time was not to be therefore taking the organization a long way beyond the expectations by the implementation team; this is because everything touches the corporate culture which is centralized (Feller, 2005). Given the complexity of the software, Hershey's enterprise 21 projects and Nestles' enterprise resource planning, they are presenting main technical challenges which involve large investments. The organization is forced to change their culture during implementation of software so as to achieve the highest level of integration (Motiwalla, 2009).

Moreover, the organization must reconcile technology of the new software systems with management and strategic requirements of the company and to adapt to the software. Direct access to real time operating systems ensures significant gains in productivity, organized data flows and speed of reaction (Feller, 2005). They also face a challenge if the new system can serve as a constructive input to manage future problems created by the current systems.

The Hershey's Enterprise 21 Project and Nestles Enterprise Resource Planning implementation are diverse therefore they have different backgrounds. To begin with, Nestles Enterprise Resource Planning had forestry materials that did not reflect on the effect of the new systems on some of its divisional levels (Rolland, 2000). This forced the company to elect the implement SAP across all divisions in an attempt to centralized operations and also to integrate other office structures. It took several months before the implementation executives of major divisions to realize how the long-term strategies of the company would cause them to lose some of their sovereignty; the project was fragmented in the end (Rolland, 2000). In addition, most Enterprise Resource Planning ere constantly using information technology to during most of its operations which should not be the case, it is likely to fail business operations.

Instead of observing Enterprise Resource Planning as a means to achieve the competency through improve business practices, companies implementing this package frequently assume it to be new center competency. The reason for this is that the software was purposely intended for manufacturing but not distribution companies (Motiwalla, 2009). Due to poor management of the new system, morale of both the managers and employees went down leading to low turnover of the employees due to the fact that no one wanted to learn the new systems. The executives were not willing to dump their spreadsheets for the complexities of the new system. Political and other executives in the decision making practice had a technical thread caused by changes in technology and new systems due to the fact that they had not been prepared for the magnitude to conform to the new system (Rolland,2000).

According to Kenneth (2000) who is the director of distribution processes at Hershey admitted that the project had come out of bad Enterprise Resource Planning implementation yet the project was critical. For this reason, Hershey ensured to have taken time and additional resources to systematically test the computer systems. He came out with a procedure of putting bar codes on empty pallets and loading them onto trucks so that any problem would be solved before the distribution center commences its operations (Prakash, 2000). Hershey was trying to handle much at the same time and it was the old operation methods that had allowed it to do business for several years, unfortunately they were destroyed in a flash.