Instructions
Scenario: A company called Colony Nursery and Landscaping opened a new store located a few hundred miles away from its original location. The company wants to implement an award system that awards their customers with points whenever customers make a purchase, but the two stores are not able to share information.
Colony Nursery and Landscaping will need to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that will solve the information silo problem by collecting and making this user data available. Colony Nursery and Landscaping is hoping that by providing customers with this award system, they will be able to maintain competitive advantage. Colony Nursery and Landscaping cannot afford to purchase, develop, or maintain this system on-site, so they are investigating cloud solutions.
In addition, for many organizations, Colony Nursery and Landscaping included, information silos make it difficult to tap into needed information. Discuss whether or not the problem of information silos can be solved by using the cloud. Some organizations do not have the resources to construct or maintain their computer infrastructure, so they utilize cloud services instead to reduce costs and improve scalability.
In this assignment, you will discuss whether or not the cloud offers solutions for Colony Nursery and Landscaping and identify an application that the ERP system could provide. Compose an essay that includes the elements listed below.
- Define what an information silo is.
- Explain why information silos are a problem for organizations.
- Discuss why organizations are moving to the cloud.
- Determine whether or not using cloud services, such as a cloud-based host for data storage, would solve the ERP information silo problem at Colony Nursery and Landscaping.
- Explain how using the ERP system and awards program would provide a competitive advantage for Colony Nursery and Landscaping.
- Discuss why the implementation of an ERP system might require business process reengineering for Colony Nursery and Landscaping. Be sure to explain the business processes that will be affected (e.g., the customer awards system). Use diagrams or tables as needed, but this is not required.
Your essay must be a minimum of two pages in length (not counting the title and reference pages), and it must be formatted in APA style. You should include an introduction section that gives background and context to your reader. You must use at least two scholarly resources as references. Any information from these resources must be cited and referenced in APA format.
Expert Answer and Explanation
Enterprise Resource Planning
Information Silos and why they are a Problem for Organizations
Information Silos are IS management systems that do not have the capabilities to communicate freely with other systems in organization due to the fact that communication employed is vertical, which poses a major disadvantage when working with unrelated system. The fact that managers could be the only ones who control information flow and access to the silos also means that there may be limited flow of information, and hence the existence of these silos (Stefl-Mabry et al., 2016).
The main cause of information silos is having some part or department of an organization restricting knowledge sharing in the organization. Information silos are a problem in organizations as they lead to redundant job roles and duplication of efforts. Businesses can miss many opportunities due to inefficiency that envelops from information silos.
Why Organizations are moving to the Cloud
Cloud computing has become a new norm for most organization because it supports organizational growth in multiple ways. With cloud, it becomes possible for companies to meet the real-time needs of organization through increasing the storage capacity with the business (Kauffman et al., 2018). Companies no longer have to have concerns of space, and this gives them an opportunity to focus on other more useful processes. Cloud computing also helps in increasing the efficiency and productivity of business processes.
How Moving to Cloud would solve the Information Silo Problem at Colony Nursing and Landscaping
Colony Nursery and Landscaping encounters challenges because of a Silo Problem it has, and moving to Cloud Computing would help to enable information flow throughout the company and improve the operations. With cloud, the two branches of the company would be able to share information remotely and remove all the barriers that could lead to mismanagement or monopoly of information (Saed et al., 2018).
The biggest benefit would be the fact that these cloud services would be cost-effective and hence applicable for the organization.
How the ERP System and Awards Program would provide a Competitive Advantage for Colony Nursing and Landscaping
The ERP system would provide a competitive advantage for the company as it would offer the opportunity of automation of processes that would lead to less bulk operations. The use of integrated operations provided by the ERP system would also help the company to avoid the occurrence of problems such as information silos which could otherwise lead to a backlog in the growth of the company compared to its competitors (Jagoda & Samaranayake, 2017).
Most importantly, the system would help to save on costs of management which increases the ability of the company to gain a competitive advantage in most of its fields of operation.