Enterprise Resource Planning Benefits, Pitfalls, and Strategies, from Assignment

Enterprise Resource Planning Benefits, Pitfalls, and Strategies, from the Perspective of a CIO - Assignment Example A major concern when evaluating a suitable ERP system for an organization relates to the ability of the system to provide visibility of the organization. The aspect allows the organization to enforce strategies that meet the needs of the organization on a real time basis, thus gaining a competitive edge in the market. According to Prabhu, Kumara, and Kamath (2010), ERP promotes the quality of services given to different consumers. Customers who visit the hospital facing critical conditions require immediate attention. ERP systems help in the fast retrieval of information required to attend to the patient. It also allows the organization to know what material could be missing, and order for it immediately, thus saving the life of the customer. ERP also reduces the amounts of inventory that the organization holds, thus reducing the overall costs of the organization. This allows the company to invest in other profitable activities, such as, expansions, which allow the organization to serve more people. Different systems are structure in different languages. An organization that employs a different language from that used in the presentation of the system could lead to a language barrier. Consequently, the CIO ought to consider the language of an ERP system before implementing it to the business. Implementing an ERP system in an organization that does not have trained personnel to run the system may lead to operational failure, as the employees need to be trained on how to use the applications. Introducing a new system in an organization requires the support of top management. Lack of such support may frustrate the efforts of implementing an ERP system as failure of support by top managers leads to failure of the entire process. Given the current operations of the organization, implementation of a new system may lead to integration problems. Some systems do not incorporate the core operations of the organization in