Irst Meets Japanese Company
When ERP first meets Japanese company
-reflection on Naniwa Hitech case study
Abstract: In the early 1990s, Japanese manufacturing companies’ proudest plant-level optimization became no longer competitive in the context of new global environment. A lot of competitors had caught up matching equal production efficiency and the key to maintaining continuous leading position lies in standardization of business process and integration of information management system. However, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, packaged software arising out of this new demand and popular with both the US and European market found its entry into Japanese market slow. By the late 1990s, Japanese firms had lagged way behind their European and American counterparts in ERP adoption. Thus, this paper aims to analyze reasons behind Japanese companies’ slow adoption of ERP during this period based on case study of Naniwa HiTech and then goes further to explore factors conducive to Naniwa’s final success in ERP implementation. Key words: ERP, BPR, CSFs As the most revolutionary package software developed in the 1970s and expanding fast across major western countries throughout the 1990s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system unified information management system of the entire company with coverage of all majors functions such as accounting and finance, sales and service, procurement and manufacturing, human resource, etc and facilitated information flow astronomically. In spite of all its advantages, it encountered setback in Asian market in the 1990s, particularly in Japanese market where most of the local manufacturing firms reserved a reluctant stance in its adoption though they were indeed in need of a new integrated information system as a replacement of
1
their current legacy system to achieve further efficiency because their optimization efficiency in production had been emulated by many other competitors. Naniwa HiTech was one of early adopters of ERP “whereas many
-reflection on Naniwa Hitech case study
Abstract: In the early 1990s, Japanese manufacturing companies’ proudest plant-level optimization became no longer competitive in the context of new global environment. A lot of competitors had caught up matching equal production efficiency and the key to maintaining continuous leading position lies in standardization of business process and integration of information management system. However, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, packaged software arising out of this new demand and popular with both the US and European market found its entry into Japanese market slow. By the late 1990s, Japanese firms had lagged way behind their European and American counterparts in ERP adoption. Thus, this paper aims to analyze reasons behind Japanese companies’ slow adoption of ERP during this period based on case study of Naniwa HiTech and then goes further to explore factors conducive to Naniwa’s final success in ERP implementation. Key words: ERP, BPR, CSFs As the most revolutionary package software developed in the 1970s and expanding fast across major western countries throughout the 1990s, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system unified information management system of the entire company with coverage of all majors functions such as accounting and finance, sales and service, procurement and manufacturing, human resource, etc and facilitated information flow astronomically. In spite of all its advantages, it encountered setback in Asian market in the 1990s, particularly in Japanese market where most of the local manufacturing firms reserved a reluctant stance in its adoption though they were indeed in need of a new integrated information system as a replacement of
1
their current legacy system to achieve further efficiency because their optimization efficiency in production had been emulated by many other competitors. Naniwa HiTech was one of early adopters of ERP “whereas many
References: 1. Cole R. (2003). Naniwa HiTech Implementing ERP case study. Doshisha Business Cases 05-01. Reference no. 907-012-1, pp. 1-21. 7. Davenport, T.H. and Short, J.E. (1990). The new industrial engineering: information technology and business process redesign. Sloan Management Review, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 11-27. 15. Schwartz, K.(1998). Putting Consultants on Your Team. Beyondcomputing, Vol. 7, No.6.