¶ … Strategy of E-Procurement and IT Architecture 1a) Planned Strategy in E-procurement

A large number of organizations adopting electronic commerce (e-commerce) have identified e-procurement as an effective strategy that can be used to enhance the competitive market advantages. In a business environment, a traditional procurement faces challenges of a paperwork workload associated that includes a purchase order, delivery order, and statement of work, invoice, and payment. All these process increase an organizational cost of production. Typically, e-procurement eliminates this workload by assisting management purchasing or supplying goods and services electronically at lowest possible costs using the paperless transactions.

A report carried out by the CIPS (2013) reveals that the goal of e-procurement is to use the latest information technology to link suppliers and customers thereby improve the value chain process. In essence, the e-procurement is a critical component of e-commerce, and the major goal of an e-procurement process is to enhance the speed of procurement process as well as assisting organizations to enjoy lowest possible costs for all transactions. Thus, an implementation of e-procurement will assist the ServCis LLC to procure the manufacturing materials at the lowest costs. In the contemporary business environment, the internet has become a powerful tool that organizations employ to achieve the competitive market advantages. One of the benefits of e-procurement is to assist the company to source for suppliers that offer high-quality raw materials at lowest possible costs thereby lowering the costs used to manufacture goods. The major goal of e-procurement is also to reduce the transaction costs (CIPS, 2002). A 5% decline in purchasing costs automatically increases sales by 30%. The e-procurement will assist the Services LLC to eliminate the indirect costs associated to stationery, office equipment, printing, travel, and maintenance supplies.

How the goals can be accomplished

The major strategy that the ServCis LLC can employ to achieve these goals is to use the e-procurement application. An e-procurement application is a software program that will assist the organization to purchase goods and services at a reduced cost. The ERP (enterprise resources planning) is one of the effective e-procurement application that can assist the ServCis LLC to enjoy the greatest transaction costs benefits. The company can either buy the application to run its business or use the ASP (Application Service Provider) to implement the application. The software program will assist the company to source for materials globally using economic of scale. However, the security of the systems is still very important that requires using a robust authentication system to protect the company data.

1b) "Reasons the Senior Management Committee should approve the Plan"

The management of the ServCis LLC should approve the plan because the company will enjoy the transactional costs benefits, which will assist the ServCis LLC to save 20% of the total costs of production. Moreover, the e-procurement will assist in purchasing manufacturing materials online using the ERP to enhance data accuracy as well as minimizing the ordering inaccuracies.

The price benefits are the other reason that the ServCis LLC will enjoy from implementing the e-procurement. An application of effective management information system is another benefit of e-procurement. For example, ServCis LLC will enjoy the benefits of service communication, and allow effective monitoring of the procurement of materials.

Question 2: a) Challenges/problems Encountered when implementing ERP system / HRIS for IntreSec

The IntreSec Inc. is a multinational company based in the United States intending to implement ERP system and HRIS. While IntreSec Inc. will derive several benefits from the application of HRIS and ERP system, nevertheless, the company can still face challenges in the implementation of enterprise resources system. Implementation of the HRIS can be time consuming and challenging to implement. One of the HRIS implementation challenges is the escalation of the cost of the project. Typically, a sudden increase in the cost of the project can make the IntreSec face challenges in a successful implementation of the project. An escalation of the project costs can lead to project abandonment if the organization does not have a sufficient fund for the project's implementation since the costs of implementing the HRIS project range from $1,000 to $12 million.

Moreover, the incurred costs to complete the project may offset the benefits associated to the project's implementation. This type of challenges is particularly common if the IntreSec does not implement an effective cost-benefit analysis before implementing the project. Lack of effective personnel with IT skills is another challenge that the organization can face when carrying out the project's...

In another word, an HRIS assists an organization to control, and monitor the activities of employees within an organization. The critical success factors of the HRIS for the IntreSec is that it will assist the organization to automate its human resources activities such as payroll information, recruitment information, and management of resources. Moreover, the HRIS can assist the IntreSec to reduce administration costs such as the costs of recording data, keeping data, data storage, and retrieval. The HRIS system will also be able to reduce the costs of managing human resources thereby increasing the company revenue. Moreover, the HRIS will assist the employees of IntreSec across different countries to communicate effectively. The WAN (Wide Area Network) can be integrated with the HRIS to assist the IntreSece employee in the United States to communicate effectively with other IntreSece's employees in other countries.
2c) Changes needed at IntreSec when Implementing the HRIS to ensure the ERP function effectively.

An effective strategy that the IntreSec can employ to ensure that the ERP functioning effectively is to integrate the ERP in the HRIS. The company should merge the HRIS with the ERP. The ERP has several modules, and part of the modules is the HRIS, thus, integration of ERP with the HRIS will make the ERP systems functioning effectively. Moreover, the integration of the ERP will assist the organization to enjoy the benefits associated to both the ERP and HRIS, which assists the IntreSec to enjoy benefits of e-procurement and human resources management systems across different geographical locations where the company is operating.

Question 3a) Critical Success of IT Steering Committee

The task of the IT steering committee for DoingIt, Inc. is to ensure that an IT project supports the business goals and objectives. Moreover, the IT steering committee is responsible for ensuring that the project aligns to project's aims. The task of the IT Steering Committee is also to monitor, prioritize and review the organizational IT projects based on the cross-functional perspectives. Moreover, the IT Steering Committee aligns the IT objectives with the organizational strategic goals. The IT steering committees can also assist the organization achieving the IT prioritization, and IT strategic planning. The strongest mandate of the IT steering committee is to leverage the technology to achieve business solutions. Other tasks of the IT steering committee is to ascertain that the budget allotted to the IT project streamlines to the priorities of business recommendations. The task of the IT steering committee is also to prioritize the IT investment as well as delivering the final recommendations and approvals for the proposed IT project. The committee also enhances an effective communication and collaborative planning between IT department and functional units.

The critical success of the IT committee is the benefits to be derived from the IT outsourcing, which is the strategy that the organization can employ to reduce the IT costs. By allowing the third party company to manage the IT investment, the DoingIt will be able to reduce the high costs of IT implementation and maintenance.

3b) Difference between IT in-house Development and Outsourcing development.

IT outsourcing is a business technique where a company entrusts part of or all its IT functions to an external vendor. For example, an organization can outsource part of its HRIS or ERP functions such as payroll, transaction processing, inventory and order management. It is also possible for an organization to outsource the accounting functions to an external service provider. On the other hand, in-house IT strategy is a business process where a company operates its IT operations within the company. In this sense, the organization is required to hire a pool of IT professionals who will be in charge of the IT operations. Unlike the IT outsourcing where in-house staff does not participate in the IT operations, however, in the in-house IT strategy, a company employees are responsible for managing the company IT operations

The paper suggests devoting on the IT outsourcing than an in-housing strategy based on the benefits that DoingIt stands to derive from the IT outsourcing. Different benefits the organization stands to gain from adopting the IT outsourcing. First, the company will be able to reduce the IT costs using an external vendor to manage the IT operations. Moreover, the company will be able to reduce the labor…