Reference no: EM132247403

Case Study: First City Bank Implements an ERP System First City bank initiated an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation project to reduce overhead, increase efficiency, enhance the quality of operations, and increase customer satisfaction for its mortgage branch. The Systems Integrator (SI) Sigma Consulting, LLC, was brought onboard to analyze the existing business processes at the mortgage branch of the First City Bank and help the bank achieve its business objectives by implementing and configuring the ERP system to increase automation of its repetitive operations, integrate various business functions, and offer a portal for the customers to directly submit their mortgage information online by completing an online application themselves. The SI performed the stakeholder identification and analysis and collected the stakeholder information in the stakeholder register. Thereafter, Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions were scheduled to gather stakeholder requirements. The JAD sessions were completed and requirements were collected. Based on the requirements collected, solution specifications were created, and in turn, the solution was developed and configured. However, the client did not accept the solution because it was not configured correctly. This became apparent during the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase when the client asked specific subject matter experts (SMEs) to test use cases and test scenarios, and SMEs discovered that the new ERP system was configured incorrectly. Apparently, the requirements captured by the SI were incomplete and incorrect due to the lack of participation by all required stakeholders. The incomplete requirements resulted in wrong solution specifications and hence incorrect configuration of the new ERP system. Jeff Barlow, the manager of the mortgage branch of First City Bank (the client), said that the SMEs engaged in performing the UAT were not available during the JAD sessions. This turmoil prompted the client First City Bank and SI Sigma Consulting to go back to the drawing board. The design of the solution was subjected to significant changes involving time-consuming change requests and approvals followed by additional cycles of the unit, system, and user acceptance testing. The solution, though, was finally approved and delivered, but it was significantly late and over budget. Case Questions 1. Who are the stakeholders in this case? 2. How do you define a successful project? In your opinion, was this project a success or a failure? 3. What went well in this project? 4. What went wrong in this project? 5. What are some lessons learned from this project that can be applied in similar project environments?