Paramount Books is currently using Microsoft dynamics AX 2009

INTRODUCTION:

PARAMOUNT BOOKS:

Paramount Books is currently using Microsoft dynamics AX 2009. A paramount book is a well known name in Pakistan for the publishing of course books and every book in the world can be found. Paramount Publishing Enterprise was founded in 1948. We are one of the biggest wholesale and retail distributor cum Publisher in Pakistan and distributing books from major publishers in India and abroad.

“Our web site provides you access to more than a million different books in 35 different sections. In our 64th year, Paramount Publishing Enterprise continues its tradition of excellence. We believe that customers are the only reason of our success and each customer should be treated in a friendly, respectful, courteous, and fair manner.
We are physically located in Karachi and have branches in Islamabad, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad & Peshawar”.

SOURCE:

Muhammad Anwar Hussain (IT Coordination/Web Administrator.)

KARACHI

Head Office 152/O Block 2 P.E.C.H.S Karachi Tel. +92(21) 34310030-2  Fax. +92(21) 34553772 info@paramountbooks.com.pk

VENDOR OF ERP PACKAGING USED:

International Office Products (IOP) is one of the largest IT companies of Pakistan Offering complete one-window IT solutions to its customers for nearly two decades.

TIME TAKEN FOR THE PROJECT:

The time period is maximum 2 year.

Start Date: 01-November-2008

Ending Date/ Go-Live Date: 01-July-2010

NAME OF APPLICATION MODULES:

They are select the MICROSOFT DYNAMIC and they select all those modules which we where using in our old system like,

MODULES:

• General ledger
• CRM
• Account receivable
• Account payable
• Bank
• Inventory management
• HRM
• Production
• Expense management

NOT IMPLEMENTED:

MODULE:

• payroll

Microsoft was not giving support to Pakistani Client or in other word has not been developed a payroll system.

DATABASE USED:

They are using a SQL SERVER database.

TOTAL NUMBER OF USERS:

More than 20 users( PC’s) are using in a IT department, 4 PC’s are using in Finance department, 7 PC’s are using in HRM and Payroll department and 15 PC’s are using in other departments and branches.

KEY REASON FOR SELECTING ERP:

The reason was to get a complete solution of ERP from our organization to solve our business problems and to enhance our functionality in power to over come our daily problems.

STEPS ARE TAKEN IN IMPLEMENTATION:

To manage our old data to easily import in our system and makeup our mind to get an enterprise solution to link all over functionality like, Financial, Inventory, CRM and Master planning.

1st step) was to map our previous business process to new business process.

2nd step) Interviews was conducted by our system analysis to get the views and functionality our process there are doing successfully or not.

3rd step) Import out old data into other system.

4th step) Test run with our running data.

5th step) Then final implement at last live implementation.

IMPLEMENTATION TIME:

Different modules were implemented at different time and at different stage.

IMPLEMENTATION TEAM (VENDOR):

Business consultant, Project manager, ERP consultant, Assistant project manager.

IMPLEMENTATION TEAM (CLIENT):

Key users, Project manager, IT manger, End users, Domain Expertise.

STEERING COMMITTEE:

Steering committee was made and its members were top management.

GAPS IDENTIFY IN PROJECT:

There was a lot of problem we faced in implementation of ERP in our organize the beg lack of training and knowledge of ERP process in our employs.

It was not along time for us to after implementations are still or financial, operational, customer satisfaction and other indicators to meet our requirements and operation.

It was not a long time for us and getting the real fruit of ERP and after few days we are going to impotent or link our branches then we can estimate our calculate the real value of ERP.

GAPS REMOVE IN PROJECT:

IT projects traditionally use formal management processes for the acquisition or development, deployment, and operation of the system that emphasizes planning in depth. This approach organizes work into phases separated by decision points. Supporters of this approach emphasize that changes made early in the project can be less expensive than changes made late in the project. In the past this approach has been called waterfall. The waterfall approach contains several erroneous assumptions that negatively impact ERP projects:

• Planning – It is not humanly possible to produce a plan so that its implementation is merely a matter of executing a defined set of tasks.
• Change – It is not possible to protect against late changes.
• All businesses face late changing competitive environments.
• Stability – Management usually wants a plan to which it can commit. By making this commitment, they give up the ability to take advantage of fortuitous developments in the business and technology environment.

ERP TRAININGS:

ERP trainings were conducted from vendor to the key users and to the domain expertise and then key users trained to other end users.

DATA MIGRATION STRATEGY:

Data migration strategy was followed first we have taken testing data for data and then we have entered some data of our last year but faced many problems while migrating data because old data was not in new form something in data was missing we have backup in Microsoft xl form old data was filtered and then migrated in new system we have entered only 2 years data in new system and past years data we have recorded in Microsoft Office Xl format

PARALLEL SYSTEM:

We run our system parallel for few months Almost 6 months when we have concluded that our data was recovered then we have started only using new system and completely turned off old system.

WELL ERP PROJECT COMPLETED:

If you ask any Project Manager to explain the concept of the triple constraint triangle (also known as the Iron Triangle) of Project Time, Cost and Scope, the answer will be “You cannot change one side without changing one or both of the other sides.” While this is true for projects that follow the common project life cycle such as software implementation or construction projects, it does not usually apply to Higher Education ERP implementation projects. ERP implementation projects differ significantly when it comes to the Time side of the triangle. ERP implementations require specific go-live dates that are set at the beginning of the project which specify when the new system goes into a full-user mode. For example, the go live date for a Finance system is usually the beginning of the fiscal year and moving the date by a week or a month would leave the enterprise with no Finance system.

The go live date cannot be easily adjusted. Due to constraints with support and licensing, most enterprises opt to change Cost and Scope rather than Time. An option available to institutions faced with challenges to meeting a fixed go live date is a partial or limited go-live. This type of go-live ensures that the critical modules in the system are scheduled for AND do go-live as planned. The remaining modules are scheduled for subsequent go-live dates. A good example is a Finance ERP implementation where the institution opts to go-live with core modules such as Ledgers, Purchasing and Accounts Payable. Other modules such as Fixed Assets, Cost Accounting and others are scheduled for future phases.

COMMENTS:

ERP implementation was quite good enough to take the advantage from customers but that was not well enough to compete with the competitors.

I would suggest they should try to focus on implementing other sub modules in future to manage the workforce and financial aspect more efficiently. They should try to improve their relation with their customers so that they will earn more profit as they are earning now. I know it will take some for employees to adopt new environment i.e. Microsoft Dynamic but this change is for their betterment and for improved and well defined business process.

Training helps in increasing the job knowledge and skills of employees at each level. The horizons of human intellect and an overall personality of the employees can be enhanced if he has given proper training. The productivity of the employees can be increased which helps the organization to achieve its long-term goal. So we can see how important training is for an organization.

I would suggest them to upgrade their ERP because they are growing there business so they need to improve their efficiency of ERP and there processes and they need to upgrade their infrastructure because they are currently facing problems in it.

Posted in: ERP,ERP Advantage and Disadvantage,Paramount Books is currently using Microsoft dynamics AX 2009