Current business process of CRLS

Discuss about the Business Process of CRLS.

The case is about High court judge Chris and Richard who provides free legal advice to their clients through their foundation Chris and Richard Legal’s support. Free legal advice provided by them was gaining popularity by the word of mount and has enabled gaining many clients because of unaffordability of people. Overwhelming demands has led to expansion and hiring of many lawyers, volunteers and administration staffs. With the growth in services, maintaining books of accounts was a struggling issue for them. Concerning this, service provider heard the benefits about the implementation of ERP system in the business processes of small and medium enterprises. Installation of computerized system has several benefits but CRLS is not sure about the benefits that would be attributable to them (Al-Ghofaili et al. 2014). For the implementation of Enterprise resource, planning system to the benefits realised by CRLS requires to studies the possibilities of adopting them in light of various benefits and challenges.

CRLS has expanded their service by gaining popularity from word of mouth and their increased service demand are mange by hiring additional lawyers and administrative staffs offering voluntary services to their existing clients. The cost of managing administrative services are managed by receiving donations given by local donors. There are three brand offices of the organization having fifty volunteers. Details relating to services offered by lawyers to their clients are recorded manually in books of accounts. Maintaining up to date details of clients have become struggling issue for the administrative staffs. At present, organization is seeking the employment of the information system for managing and recording details of their clients and they plan to utilize the donation for adopting the ERP system (Al-Johani and Youssef 2013).

Cloud based Enterprise resource planning offers bundle of applications that assist business in managing, storing, interpreting and automating the process of collecting data from various sources of business such as   marketing, accounting and delivery of service. A suite of ERP apps forms the solutions of cloud based ERP that is accessed via a browser over the connection of internet. A steady internet connection is required for running cloud-based solutions in small service companies (Escalona et al. 2015).

As pointed in the case study that employing cloud based ERP would help in various tasks such as recording detail of lawyers, clients, registration of bar council, preparation of documentation and recording various court details. Cloud based ERP is an approach of enterprise resource planning making use of platforms of cloud computing and services that assist business by providing a flexible process of business transformation. Cloud computing platform provides business with opportunity that helps in completely transforming the way it pays and uses information technology (Lauterbach 2015).

Challenges in implementing cloud-based ERP system

Emerging requirements of small enterprise such as CRLS would be addressed by ERP evolving solutions. However, am organization is required to consider in many ways to use and determine cloud based ERP systems by addressing factors such as size of company, needs of security, issues of organization and type of industry. Some of the benefits presented here would help presenting an argument to persuade management of organization for implementing cloud based ERP.

• Cost of cloud based ERP software is comparatively lower than other software. Overall hardware is the accountability of the cloud service provider. Organization implying cloud based software are requited tom pay based on specific service usage.
• Information technology resources of organization are able to derive flexible levels of scalability due to integrated built in feature of clouds based system. It further helps in reducing the expenditure incurred by organization regarding the usage of information system services.
• Cloud based system provides unrestricted access to business and as per the privileges granted to the stakeholders, management and employees. Lawyers would be able to access the system though devices their choices.
• Small enterprise such as CRLS are not required to implement their own information technology department or hire costly information technology specialist.
• Some of the costs that can be managed by the cloud based ERP by paying a regular, an unanticipated and user subscription fees. It helps in neglecting of any updates or any up front hardware procurements. Updating of software are received through and does not involves any additional charges (Murphy et al. 2016).
• Total implementation cost would be much less for cloud based ERP as compared to any other system as the user are required to pay a flat rate off fee either month or rental fees. This helps in lowering the operation costs of CRLS. Overall expense of organisation would be reduced further with the correct implementation of cloud based ERP system (Sedera et al. 2013).
• Enhance security measures are offered by the cloud based a single user can access system as such system using a single account at a time. CRLS being a free legal service provider are required to keep the confidential information of their client safely and cloud based would help in securing the data (Nowak and Kurbel 2016).
• Provider of cloud based ERP solutions provide twenty-four services to their clients and all important updates relating to new features and fixing of securities are informed immediately to all users.

Implementation of such system requires training and on boarding of employees and it is certainly possible that organization will make under investment. Security of data can be considered as one of the concern; however, it is not an issue. Change management is required to be done intelligently as the information system are required to be efficiently managed (Walther et al. 2013).

An ERP system for small service organization is to provide them with integrated and enterprise wide integrated model intended to deliver information service for meeting the growing needs of business. While conducting feasibility analysis of cloud based ERP, a host of factors are attributed and this involves business process and their actions and data management. It is the analysis of business model regarding the cloud-based system of ERP. Three primary areas are determined by feasibility analysis and this involves technical resources, marketing and financing. Considering results of each of these elements will help in determining the plausibility of the implementation of the cloud based ERP system. An organization is able to receive feasibility report while carrying out feasibility analysis that leads to optimizing the acquisition process and helps in improving services to their clients (Fruth and Neacsu 2014).

The feasibility analysis of the implementation of the cloud based ERP stem in CRLS is depicted in the following paragraphs and they are as follows:

Cost perspective- Some of the key considerations relating to cost of implementing the software are required to be considered along financial charts of account design. Implementation of cloud based ERP system would help CRLS in accessing robust technology at a lower ownership cost. Further benefit is that implementation and maintenance cost are also minimized by using the software.

Service functional fitness perspective- The cloud based ERP service is provided with a single payment business unit for processing the payments and the same procedures are involves the clients receipt processing.  A new flexibility is provided by fusion procurement cloud that helps in delivering shared services for procurement.  For defining the right service provider relationship and assigning the appropriate business function of each of business unit, it is required to understand the structure of organization. For importing small to medium volumes of data, the data integration of the system helps in providing integration with the Microsoft excel sheets as part of day-to-day management.  Applications users such as lawyers and administration staffs are required to login to ensure that data are securely accessed and this also assist them by providing greater interactive capabilities with online data validation. Data that are obtained from another environment relating to clients can be easily stores in one single system.

Feasibility analysis of cloud-based ERP system

The alignment between information technology capabilities and needs of business. Needs of aligning the business needs and information technology incorporating organizational strategy are increasingly recognized by researching numerous articles. If the process of doing business and carrying out any services were not aligned with the strategy pursued by organization, then carrying out their activities would be able to service their clients effectively. Another issue also arise relation to satisfaction of clients in terms of receiving legal advice. Difficulties would arise in area of doing dome innovative ideas to provide services.

There are several risks involved with the customization of ERP and BPR and they are as follows:

Human resources- Customization of these systems involve too much coding or no coding testing that will lead to the creation of incompatibility in the new system. This procedure involve too much costs and is expensive. Organization might face difficulties in the customization of system due to lack of consultants and experienced staffs.

Upgrade- The phase of modifying system needs to be analysed by the developer and the process of validation, customization and up gradation of the old system is a lengthy process as the system cannot be up gradated on one time basis. The system can be transformed to re implementation if the customization is contemptible from the plan of implementing the system (Nowak and Kurbel 2016).

Customization of ERP leads to create several problems during their implementation- There are factors that has largely led to over customizing the system of ERP. System customization become difficult to manage on part of organization as it can break up the implementation budget and resistance can be received from employee’s relation to customization of the system and in this regard, customization becomes a valid concern (Paliwoda-P?kosz and Soja 2015).

The risk associated with lack of alignment in process of business and ERP system can be minimized by developing detailed specification requirements and conducting the test for system customization prior to ERP implementation and monitoring the system of organization very closely. Process of organization can be realigned with ERP system and this involves radical redesign and rethinking of the customized system. System requirement of organization would be met by increasing probability of ERP system that would originate as business initiative (Mital et al. 2015)

Organization can face some of the strategic disadvantages due to the customization of BPR and ERP. The ERP system if not able to complete address all the needs of organization despite the fact that it helps ion solving most of the essential things. Trade-offs are involved in system of ERP by nature and some of trade-offs are related to flexibility versus standardization trade-offs, trade-offs of best of breed approach versus on single system of all departments and functions (Gunawan and Surendro 2014). Some of the change issues are faced by organization while customization of ERP and BPR. Sometimes, organization are required to accommodate current business realities that calls for making change in the ERP and BPR system.

Issues arising from misalignment of organizational strategy and business processes

Implementation of the cloud based ERP system would help in bringing organizational change in CRLS. The application of ERP systems are designed to support processes of business that will help in enhancing the efficient of operating activities, performance of organization and accountability. Implementation of cloud based is expected to provide better interface as compared to any other system. There involves day-to-day operations, administrative and pragmatic that helps in available key transactions. Cloud based options is considered to be safer as it has security protocols and backup structures that helps in prevention of data loss. Adoption of computerized system will help in easily recording transactions. Records of all the clients along with lawyers such as address, bar councils and name are registered along with their specialization area (Ekman 2015). All the descriptions of clients are recorded that will make the experience of judges very helpful.

Implementation of the cloud based ERP system involves great deal of complexities, consumes time and involves great deal of risks. It requires deployment of new infrastructure and purchasing of servers that is regarded as costly affairs to business. However, they are able to solve some of critical issues faced by business, their needs and operations. Prior to the implementation of the cloud based ERP systems required CRLS to have the proper analysis of benefits and costs associated with it. A number of factors are required to be considered regarding to use the cloud based ERP services and evaluate the viability of cloud based ERP system. In order for organization to have appropriate cloud service suiting the needs of organizational activities. Complexities of organization are required to be measured by organization. Cloud hosted solutions are considered appropriate for the organization requiring minimal customization and limited integration. Therefore, it is recommended to CRLS to take appropriate and comprehensive approach for mitigating the risks associated with cloud based ERP implementation. Furthermore, recommendations for classifying the applications of system based on risk level should be re-evaluated by organization. Companies might be forced to put greater importance of redundancy of network in order to provide continued access when there is any disruption of business operations.

Conclusion:

Implementation of cloud based ERP system by CRLS comes with several challenges and benefits. It can be evaluated from the above discussion that the challenges of the system would be offset by the benefits derived by system implementation. The report prepared above depicts the risk faced by organization while customizing the ERP and BPR system. Changes in the current process of business is done by installing the information system for recording of data of clients and maintain the security and confidentiality. Organization is inclined toward implementing the clod based ERP system suiting to their business requirements. Challenges and benefits from implementing such system are discussed in report.  However, some of the risks associated with employment of such system needs to be mitigated by performing the feasibility analysis that leads to point out the importance of such system in specific areas of organisation. If the ERP system is not appropriately implemented, then there is the possibility of misalignment between the strategy pursued by organization and processes of business.

Risk associated with ERP and BPR customization

References:

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