Swinburne University of Technology
Faculty of Business and Law
INF60007 Introduction to Business Information Systems
Assignment 1
Xiangzhe Xu April 2018
1 Introduction
With the advancement and enrichment of Information Technologies, achieving competitive advantage for organisations becomes less dependent on accessing technology. However, as an Enterprise System is an essential part of a company’s infrastructure, organisations are utilising it in optimising operations and processes, and managing resources to achieve competitive advantages (Saleh Shatat & Mohamed Udin 2012).
Kroenke et al. (2015) has summarised three competitive strategies a business can utilise: cost leadership, differentiation and innovation. An organisation that implements
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reducing production cost by increasing the scale of production and improving quality,
3. accurately forecasting the market’s level of demand and supply,
4. utilising new technologies, in this paper it will be referred as implementing an ERP system,
5. and only keeping core business, outsourcing supporting activities.
Powell et al. (2013) suggests that an ERP system plays an important role in achieving high quality, low cost and short lead time within an organisation, in which acquiring useful information is key for successfully carrying through these factors (HassabElnaby et al. 2012). An implemented ERP system will greatly enhance information processing capacity and it leads to enhanced information quality and availability. As a result of the enhancement, coordination among value-adding activities are better carried out, business processes are simplified, standardised and streamlined, firms decision-making becomes more accurate (Madapusi & D’Souza 2012). In addition to these benefits, minimising cost in energy, time, or resources in producing products and providing services become viable. Moreover, organisations can respond changes in the market in a timely manner, thus manage inventory more effectively (Hwang & Grant