UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2021/2022
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF BUSINESS IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BUSS 307: ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
FULL TIME/ PART TIME/ DISTANCE LEARNING
DATE: DECEMBER, 2021 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: ANSWER QUESTION ONE AND ANY OTHER TWO QUESTIONS
QUESTION ONE [20 Marks]
a) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are premised on the benefits associated with
integrating business processes and the enabling of information systems across organisations.
i) Why is integration such a critical activity for global organisations? (5 Marks)
ii) How might the ERP-induced integration of information systems lead to a strengthening of
an organisation’s competitive position? Use at least two examples to illustrate your answer.
(5 Marks)
iii) If you were the CIO of a global firm about to consider buying or outsourcing an ERP. What
factors would you consider to decide on wther to buy or outsource (5 Marks)
b) What are some the key implementation considerations that should be addressed as part of the
planning process, especially related to using an integrated ERP and transforming the
organizational culture?
(5 Marks)
QUESTION TWO [15 Marks]
a) Imagine that your uncle owns and operates a construction company. The company owns a
number of very expensive pieces of machinery, such as backhoes, for building houses and
apartment buildings. Up until now, your aunt has “taken care of the books” by keeping
financial records by hand. However, business is picking up, and she has gotten far behind
in filing taxes, paying bills, and so on. Write a persuasive proposal to your uncle about why he
needs an ERP system and how it would help with not only the burden of billing, payroll, and
filing taxes, but also with keeping track of the company’s expensive machinery. (10 Marks)
b) Discuss how the Y2K (year 2000) problem affect the sales of ERP systems? ( 5Marks)
QUESTION THREE [15 Marks]
• Students first fill out forms listing their desired classes. They bring those completed
forms to the academic advisement office, where, working with an advisor, they create a
course selection document. Then, the student fills out a computer-readable form with
the course and section number for all classes approved by the advisor. This form is
submitted to the registration office where it is fed into a document reader, which
electronically reads the completed forms; the data is then written to the master course
schedule disk.
• At the end of the two-week registration period, data from the master course schedule
disk is fed into the master scheduling program, which assigns students to courses. The
scheduling program is designed to maximize the number of students who receive their
requested courses while staying within class capacity limits. Once the master
scheduling program has been updated for all students, the program produces three
documents: (1) individual schedules for each student, (2) initial student lists for each
class, and (3) the summary schedule report for the administration.
• After students receive their schedules, they are allowed to drop or add classes for a
period of two weeks. To add or drop a class, a student must first obtain permission
from the professor teaching the class. Once that signature is obtained on the drop/add
form, the student brings the form to the computer center where the clerk enters the
change into the scheduling system, which in turn updates the master course disk. The
clerk then prints out a new schedule for that student.
i. As the lead consultant write out a plan on how an ERP system can be used to automate this
process (8 Marks)
ii. Describe the IT infrastructure requirement for this project ( 7 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR [15 Marks]
X Enterprises (XE) is a Tokyo Headquartered multinational that specialises in the production and sales
of home electronic entertainment products such as DVD players, televisions, stereo systems, etc. It
sources goods in twelve countries, manufactures in nine and sells through a network of franchisees
globally. It has grown in recent years as a result of acquiring smaller competitors, and so now it is a
rather decentralised, chaotic organisation. The CEO has decided that there is a need to integrate XE’s
activities rather more systematically than has been done in the past. He has given this task to you, the
CIO. He has not given you any specific guidelines on what to do or how, but he does want to see dramatic
improvements in the organisation within 12 months, as well as a timetable for future integration. The
CEO expects that a reorganised, centralised, integrated XE will be a more effective competitor in this
dynamic market.
a) In your first month as CIO, what are the key activities that you would want to do, and why?
(9 Marks)
b) ERP systems are an obvious choice on the technical side, given their potential to integrate people,
processes, data and indeed the organisation as a whole. However, ERP implementation is also extremely
risky. What do you consider would be the most significant risks of ERP implementation in the case of
XE? ( 6 Marks)
