SECTION A [100 MARKS] Read the case study carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Green Rabbit Once upon a time, two friends launched a candy wholesale business. Then, they ran into a problem: shipping melt-prone chocolate bars during summer months. After the pals designed a heat-sensitive supply chain, other food companies turned to them for help. The duo rebranded as Green Rabbit, a supply chain logistics provider specializing in fast delivery of perishable goods.

That shift in strategy tested the companys current processes, which relied on QuickBooks, Excel and email. Green Rabbits multiple databases couldnt communicate with one another, making real-time data analysis impossible. The warehouse was often waiting on help from the IT team, too.

Green Rabbit chose NetSuite ERP, and the NetSuite professional services team got the company up and running on the system in three months.

Green Rabbit now:

Helps customers ship candy, snacks and more across the country in 24 hours from one of three different warehouses, without inventory errors.

Delivers tens of thousands of orders per day, without delays.

Gets guaranteed error-free data from its ERP system, instead of risking errors from manually entered data.

Could triple its order volume, if desired, without impact to its systems.

Key Takeaways

When implemented correctly, ERP makes it easier to manage a complicated supply chain, as Green Rabbits case study shows.

ERP is pivotal to growth. Green Rabbit implemented ERP after it grew substantially and because it anticipated further expansion.

Many growing companies like those profiled here ask: What is the business case for ERP?

Besides the takeaways from our case studies, it boils down to agility. When finance teams stop peering at dozens of spreadsheets and paper records, they can get strategic. By helping executive and business colleagues visualize data, growing firms can forecast future trends and adapt quickly to beat competitors.

Answer ALL the questions in this section.

Question 1

(20 Marks)

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems serve as a cross-functional enterprise backbone that integrates and automates many internal business processes and information systems within the manufacturing, logistics, distribution, accounting, finance and human resource functions of a company such as Green Rabbit.

1.1. Discuss the advantages that Green Rabbit saw in implementing an ERP system. (10 Marks)

1.2. Discuss the causes of ERP failures. (10 Marks)

Question 2 (30 Marks) Which information systems tools can Green Rabbit use to support the marketing function?

Question 3 (25 Marks) An information system has a system development life cycle (SDLC) which is a sequence of steps or phases it passes through between the time the system is conceived and the time it is phased out. Describe the SEVEN (7) phases of the SDLC that Green Rabbit has been through.

Question 4 (25 Marks) Discuss the key features of e-commerce that makes it different from any previous technologies.