You are the CIO of a manufacturing firm. The CEO and CFO continue to express concern over the lack of integration among business processes within their functional business areas. The CEO and CFO feel an ERP system coupled with Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship functionality is the answer.

Both executives have heard negative reports from fellow executives in other companies and from press reports of failed ERP implementations. To avoid duplicating the same situation in their organization, the CEO and CFO request that you submit a Proposed Approach for Implementing an ERP System report. Ultimately they want to determine if their company is ready for ERP.

Your deliverable should include the following content:

A proposed approach for conducting a needs assessment/requirements gathering initiative.

A proposed approach to evaluate ERP vendors and their software products fitness to meet your requirements. The requirements, at this stage, reflect which functional business processes your firm needs to implement.

A proposed approach to implementing the ERP system into a fully production enterprise system.

Proposed measurements to determine if the ERP implementation was successful.