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Grading

Question 1 (10 points)

Congratulations, you were recently recruited as a Business Analyst for a consulting

company. Your first client is an industrial manufacturing company. Your client has a
culture of siloed IT legacy systems that are not integrated and that were developed
independently to meet local business needs of specific departments and functions.
You think about SAP Enterprise Resource Planning system as a solution.

You client asked you the followings tasks:

1. explain the ERP advantages in a customized way for the CEO (4 advantages)
2. explain the ERP advantages in an operational way for managers (4
advantages)
3. explain the potential drawbacks on an ERP system (4 drawbacks)
4. explain the work(s) that need(s) to be done before implementing the SAP ERP
modules in a successful way.

Provide detailed justifications to your answers.

Answers

1. The advantages of ERP system for a CEO those indicated below. Please give
0,5 point per advantage for a maximum of 2 points
a. ERP enables holistic governance
b. Boost customer satisfaction thanks to the integration of a customer
centric view
c. Lowering TTM
d. Supporting geographic expansion
e. ERP can shorten post-merger integration
f. Better organizational efficiency
g. Better standardization
h. Optimization of flows of activities
i. Enhanced business process alignment

Please note that if you the student integrates an advantage that makes sense to the
CEO but that I did not mention above, you need to integrate it

2. The operational advantages of an ERP are: Please give 0,5 point per
advantage for a maximum of 2 points

a. Data accuracy
b. Data consolidation
c. Better efficiency
d. Enhanced productivity
e. Decreasing Costs

Please note that if you the student integrates an operational advantage but that I did
not mention above, you need to integrate it

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 3. The potential drawbacks of an ERP are: Please give 0,5 point per drawback
for a maximum of 2 points

a. Lack of customization to specific customers’ needs

b. The move to ERP can be disruptive as it requires major buy-in from
end-users
c. ERP requires major cultural change
d. ERP implementation mean major operational change
e. ERP investment can be expensive
f. ERP can also mean dependency on software vendor

Please note that if you the student integrates a potential drawback on an ERP, you
need to integrate it

4. before implementing the SAP ERP modules in a successful way, organizations

need to engage in different actions:

Please give 1 point per recommendation for a maximum of 4 points

a. Create an IT Governance committee that will follow the ERP adoption,

implementation, use, post-adoption and continuous use
b. Creating an ad-hoc entity that will supervise the ERP vendor selection, the
consulting company selection, the ERP adoption and implementation, the
change management etc
c. Consider the ERP project as a moment to start a Business Process
Reengineering endeavor
d. Involve the Human Resource department in recruiting the HR skills needed for
the ERP
e. Implement learning modules (online)
f. Create a system of bonuses (even if it will need to wait until the cash issue is
solved)
g. Set specific KPIs for IT employees including power users
h. Recruit a consulting company that has no financial linkages with the software
vendor
i. Recruit a consulting company that has proven successful records in terms of
prior ERP implementation
j. Rely on power users to accelerate ERP implementation
k. Rely on the consulting team to diffuse their experience
l. Improve the quality of the data used by the legacy systems before migration to
the ERP systems
m. Adapt the hardware capacity to the capacity as it is required by the ERP
solution
n. Make sure to have sufficient budget not only to acquire the ERP nut also to
acquire all the related aspects: training of end-users, consulting, integration,
hardware requirements of the ERP

Please note that if you the student integrates a recommendation that I did not
indicate but that you deem as meaningful, you need to integrate it

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Question 2 (5 points)

Explain in detail what are the key typical IT strategic risks that companies can face.
Give a concrete example for each risk.

The Load Balancer is a technology that can help dealing with one of the risks that
you would have identified. Explain what a Load Balancer is about and justify how it
can deal with one of the risks that you already identified.

Please give 0,5 point for each correct citation of the risks below
Please give 0,5 point for each correct definition of each risk as it is indicated below.

Please note that the students does not need to use the exact words of my definitions.
The most important thing is that he/she come-up with the adapted idea.

Agility 0,5 Being able to change with acceptable speed and cost 0,5
Accuracy 0,5 Providing timely, complete, and accurate information to all 0,5
relevant stakeholders
Access 0,5 Ensuring that the right people have access to appropriate 0,5
information and the wrong people do not
Availability 0,5 Keeping existing processes running and recovery from 0,5
interruptions

Please give 0,5 point for the student who will give the definition of a load balancer as
it is indicated below. Please note that the students does not need to use the exact
words of my definition. The most important thing is that he/she comes-up with the
core idea that I explain below.

A load balancer is a device that acts as an intermediary that intercepts all the
requests from users of a given application and will then concurrently allocate
requests to different servers in a way to enable permanent availability of applications.

Please give 0,5 point for the student who will write that the load balancer will help
dealing with: (the two options will be OK)
- the risk of availability
- the risk of access

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Question 3 2 (5 points)

Define what microservices are about. Then, explain the sentence blow in detail:
Microservices represent a technological evolution in the software development world
that enable organizations to move from local agility to global agility.

Please give 2 points for the student who will give the definition of microservices as it
is indicated below. Please note that the students does not need to use the exact
words of my definition. The most important thing is that he/she comes-up with the
core idea that I explain below.

Microservices are an architectural approach to building applications by splitting an

application into different core functions. Each function becomes a service and can be
built and deployed independently.

Please give 3 points for the student who will give the explanation below. Please note
that the students does not need to use the exact words that I sue. The most
important thing is that he/she comes-up with the core ideas that I explain below.

Initially organizations used to seek local agility by implementing different monolithic

applications adapted to different functions and different departments. Thus, each
manager can ask the Information Technology Department to implement a customized
application that will fit with local needs, and this will be local agility.

However, when integrating all these different monolithic applications, significant risks
of will emerge because of data incompatibility and lack of consistency because of the
fact that these applications were not designed to exchange data.

The solution for global agility is microservices since they represent tiny services that
can talk to each other via APIs (Applications Programming Interface) without caring
of the nature of the development language that was originally used to build these
applications. Thus, Microservices enable organizations to reimagine themselves and
to be globally agile by revisiting applications in a continuous way through all the
organization.

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