ERP service management functionality evaluation and vendor mapping process

The following model has been developed to address the issues discussed earlier, in order to successfully map business processes within a service operations, its service functionalities and most suitable vendor. First, an information gathering process was carried out, as mentioned earlier, in order to understand what functionalities were needed and then prioritize these functionalities in terms of their importance towards achieving business objectives and organisational strategic goals.

This section uses data from the staff questionnaires, interviews and observations to get the most accurate information from both the SME staff and its customers on functionalities as stated earlier to meet business process needs. This was followed by interviews and demonstrations from vendors on how their service management solution matches the functionalities required to mitigate service operations processes. This data is contained in appendix 1c, recorded supplier interviews. IT and business managers have also argued that ERP suites tend to have only one ‘best in class’ application, for example Peoplesoft has a good human resources module and Oracle is useful for financials (Light et al., 2001). However, service operations require the combination of some of these ‘best in class’ functionalities, as learned from practice, in order to work effectively. Interviews and demonstrations by vendors were used to bridge this gap of information between the service process feature requirements and service process features supported by the solution.

Vendor Solution Licence Purchase Cost Service Management Job Costing Calendar Scheduling Service call Mngt Time sheet entry Equip link Vs Site maint. GPS ERP Vendor Knowledge evaluation Integrates with SAP Email Functiona- lity Human Computer Interface Indv. Acct Activity Reporting Hand held Cust- omer Login Total weighted Average 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 8 8 8 8 5 2 SAP business one add-ons A A Solution £36380 for 30 Eng 25% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 10 10 0 220

B B Solution £290 & £180 per

User 40% 10 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 0 10 10 10 440

C C Solution Not specified 70% 10 3 10 10 8 10 10 7 10 10 10 10 10 0 1060

D D Solution Not specified 85% 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 1180

Third Party

Service Software

E E Solution £70000 + 18%pa 70% 0 10 10 5 0 10 5 0 3 10 2 0 10 10 10 673

F F Solution Not specified 75% 10 10 0 10 0 10 0 0 0 10 0 10 10 10 10 710

G G Solution Not specified 50% 10 10 0 0 10 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 10 470

H H Solution Not specified 20% 0 0

10

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0

10

200

I I Solution Not specified 30% 5 5 5 10 10 10 0 5 5 10 10 10 10 10 0 915

J J Solution Not specified 15% 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 120

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The first column named ‘Vendor’ contains the names of the service solution resellers or suppliers and is represented by letters A to J. The second column contains the names of the service solutions being offered by the resellers. The third column is the cost of the solution as specified by the resellers during the product demonstration. The column with the title ‘Service Management’ is the extent to which the solution meets the service management functionality being sought after by this service hybrid organisation; this is as expressed by the organisation during the vendor demonstration of the solution. The rest of the columns represent various functionalities being sought after and the extent to which each solution meets the requirement is being graded on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 indicates that the solution does not meet the function and 10 indicates that the solution met the complete functionality required for that particular need. In the last column, the average for each of the solutions is presented. The second row represents the weight that the organisation has given to each of the functionalities, based on the criticality of their current business process and the future strategic growth of the organisation.

In this model, the attributes evaluated are: Job costing; scheduler; service call management; time sheet entry; equipment or site management; global positioning system (GPS); enterprise resource planning (ERP); vendor knowledge; integration with other systems; email functionality; human computer interface; customisable account activity; reporting and customer log-in. These attributes are based on an SME service industry needs from a system, and the functionalities also have varied levels of importance attached to them by each department. That is because although the field engineers may describe the need for a better system to handle the knowledgebase of customer equipments as well as timesheet entry, the customer service team will describe the calendar scheduler as the most important while the finance manager would describe job costing as the most crucial. It is important to step backwards and understand how all the functionalities’ collective roles drive the organisation forward, strategically.

In the second row, each attribute had a weight assigned to it and this was based on the importance of the attribute to the company’s service process as indicated by Alpha’s management team. The decision of the weighting was based on the immediate and future needs of Alpha. That is, where the immediate requirements are weighted on a scale between 10 and 7 and requirements that feed into the future strategy of Alpha are weighted between 6 and

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1. The range is from one, indicating low importance, and ten, indicating the highest importance. Each vendor demonstrated how their solution met the attributes and based on that, the functionalities were graded between one and ten. The weight assigned to each feature and the assigned attribute weight/grade from each vendor’s demonstration was used to analyse each feature under the vendor’s solution which was further used to arrive at the total for the vendor. The total weight considers both the required attributes and the solution’s functionalities, matching required attributes to solution functionalities. The total weighted average for each row is therefore calculated by multiplying the assigned weight of each attribute by the score awarded to the solution based on how it met the attribute, this is then summed for each row. For example, in solution A, the attribute ‘Integrates with SAP’ has a weight of 9 and the solution was awarded a maximum point of 10 implying it fulfils this attribute completely, hence the total is 90. The next attribute fulfilled by the same solution is ‘Reporting’ which is weighted 8 and the solution awarded 10, totalling 80 for the attribute. The third attribute is ‘Handheld’ weighted 5 and solution A was awarded a 10 point to total 50 for the attribute. Therefore, the total weight assigned to solution A based on meeting the three attributes is the sum of each total, which is 220 obtained by summing 90, 80 and 50. This helped the business manager (Managing Director) to make an informed decision, whilst choosing the best fit IS solution.

The solutions are also grouped into two distinct groups, which are add-ons and third party solutions. The groups were chosen because they were the possible solutions the company can have considering legacy solutions currently in use. The add-on group is identified based on the primary solution in use during the time of implementing the service solution. An add-on is a solution or application installed alongside a primary solution, to enhance the functionality of a primary solution such as SAP Business One. In most cases, these add-ons are developed by various software companies, other than the developers of the main or primary solution, but have the same user interface. Unlike the add-ons, third party solutions do not necessarily have the same look and feel of the main or primary solution. Another issue with add-ons, also known as third party solutions, is in integration with the existing primary solution, and that is because in most cases both solutions could run on different databases/platforms. This therefore makes integration and data transfer difficult and not seamless. Third party solutions also have some

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organisation wants a combination of features, then third party solutions might not necessary be the best solution.