Reference no: EM132981312

A billion-dollar retailer with more than 5,000 stores finds that it cannot move fast enough to beat the competition. The organization's senior management arrives at the conclusion that it would be easier to achieve the strategic goals enumerated by the board of directors if the various organizational functions would share information. Shared information would enable them to develop and deploy new actions and tactics more quickly. The CEO and the president have therefore ordered the major functions to immediately update their information systems so that data sharing is possible. The SVPs of accounting and human resources immediately decide that the only solution is to decide jointly on an ERP product. ERP software applications are a set of integrated database applications, or modules, that carry out the most common business functions, including human resources, general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, order management, inventory control, and customer relationship management. To speed the installation along, they will install it using a rapid implementation methodology that a company down the street used. The goal is to have the new systems operational in nine months. Shortly after this decision is made, the SVP of HR calls you into his office and tells you that you will be management sponsor for this project. You have to decide on everything. You sit back in your nice office and think: What's the problem with this scenario? It shouldn't be difficult to select a vendor and then borrow the methodology from down the street. It worked for them; it should work for us! We'll call a few vendors in the morning and find out about cost, time frame, and implementation methods. In the meantime, I should find out a little more about how to do this and who will be using it. I remember from my information systems class in college that this is a reasonable first step when it comes to buying software.

After some discussions with department heads from all the departments in the organization, you realize that there are a large number of people (stakeholders) who will be affected by the new systems. Furthermore, you come to realize how important HR data really are to these stakeholders. Based on this information, you think, "Wow, there are far more people who could be potentially using this information system than I expected!" The old textbook and the vendor information should provide a lot to think about. Using the information from the section of this chapter titled "HRIS Customers/Users: Data Importance," please answer the following questions:

1. Identify the process and explain how the logical members of the implementation team will work in this project?

2. Think through an HR process and sketch out the system development life cycle of the project with proper justification?