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...of the company and characters have been disguised to preserve confidentiality.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
The rich description of Amscot's experience provides students with an opportunity to discuss numerous issues related to enterprise system implementations. More specifically, the learning objectives of the case revolve around the following main themes:
* Enterprise system implementation rationale
* Enterprise system investment justification
* Software selection
* Consultant usage and selection
* Technical issues such as the relationship between Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and enterprise systems
* Change management and project management issues
* Evaluating enterprise systems success
The PMB case is different from other enterprise systems implementation case studies in several respects. First, it emphasizes behavioral issues inherent in an enterprise system implementation, including change and project management. These issues are often key to the success or failure of an enterprise system. The Amscot implementation was largely successful, but there were problems associated with devoting inadequate resources to change management. Second, while several other enterprise systems cases focus on just one aspect of the implementation (e.g., software selection), this case covers the entire implementation. It begins with identifying problems related to the nonintegrated legacy system and continues through software selection, consultant selection, the implementation, going live, and follow-up. Additional characteristics of this enterprise system case study that make it unique include:
1) The case concerns an implementation in the financial services industry.
2) The focus of the case is division of a company that was concurrently implementing a corporate enterprise system.
3) The case provides the opportunity to examine the interrelationship between BPR and enterprise systems implementation.
4) The case chronicles an enterprise system implementation that was completed on time and on budget. (See the Enterprise Systems References and Resources for a brief overview of other enterprise systems case studies.)
TEACHING STRATEGIES
This case is designed for senior-level or graduate classes in accounting or management information systems. Ideally, an instructor should teach the case in a 75-90 minute class session to enable thorough discussion of all relevant issues. Students need the following prerequisite knowledge to effectively analyze and discuss the case: (1) a basic understanding of enterprise systems and how they differ from nonintegrated legacy systems (see references at the end of the Teaching Notes for suggested readings), and (2) a basic understanding of BPR. (1)
Instructors can teach the case in several ways. First, the case can serve as the basis for group oral presentations. With this approach, the instructor assigns students to groups of three and requires each group to prepare (in advance of class) a presentation summarizing its answers to the discussion questions. At the start of class, the professor selects one or more group(s) to make their presentations. Given that all the students will have prepared their own solutions to the discussion questions, they will be able to participate in the dialogue by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the oral presenters' point of view.
Another approach we have used is to sequentially cover the case discussion questions. We assign two students to act as facilitators, two students to summarize important points on the board, and one student to act as referee and make sure every student in the class participates in the discussion. Again, in this format the professor is largely a passive observer.
Instructors may also use the case to create role-play situations. For example, one group of students can assume the role of PMB management, while a second group can role-play Amscot management. The context for the role-play would be a meeting where the Amscot managers attempt to gain support from the PMB managers for the enterprise system...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
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