How business owners can automate their businesses and get a J-curve growth through a technology that will help the business owners to not only automate their businesses but also achieve the following outcomes: - Improve consistency and accuracy - Better enable your employees - Improve or increase operational efficiency - Easy access to information - Probe decision-making - Real-time financial reporting - Scale business faster - Ensure high level of customer satisfaction - Streamline business processes - Ensure 360 degree customer visibility - Ensure Cost-Efficiencies If you are able to achieve the above outcomes, then you will get a J-Curve growth in your business. To do so, you have to implement a technology called “Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).” The biggest universities of the world like Stanford University, Harvard University, MIT University, IIM University Ahmedabad, Indian School of Business etc. teach a concept with the help of Case Study Modules. Understand the ERP technology with the help of three powerful business case studies. Let us first understand what an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is. # Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) The term “Enterprise Resource Planning” is made up of the following words: Enterprise: It is often assumed that the word “Enterprise” means “Big Businesses” but it is not true. “Enterprise” simply means “a business.” Resource planning: Every business is a conglomeration of multiple resources like people, technology, factory/shop/office, capital, customers and whatever you produce. So, “resource planning” means “if you are able to plan all your resources efficiently, then you will get a big J-curve in your business.” Thus, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is all about making your business resources and processes efficient, effective and automated. Let us study the three business case studies on ERP in detail. ### 1. `Business Case Study:` **LG** Facts about LG - Presence in 40 countries - More than 82,000 employees - More than 114 subsidiaries or child companies or small companies that work with LG >Problems faced by LG As you can see from the facts around LG brand,  that they have a very complex operation and in such a complex operation, if a small process doesn’twork properly, then it will be shown on a big scale. >LG was facing the same problem.  The biggest challenge for LG was the management of their 82,000 employees. Among these employees, they had junior staff, middle-level management and top-level management. It became difficult for them to ensure that all these 82,000 people were working properly. If LG was not able to manage their employees, then instead of growing further, their growth will decline because of the: - High  salary cost of the employees - High overhead cost of the employees - High Cost to the Company (CTC) of employees To overcome this challenge, LG decided to implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in their business. >Outcomes achieved by LG after implementing ERP - LG implemented ERP software in all the 40 countries where they were operating and got the following benefits: - Enabled the top management to understand all the 82,000 employees - Allowed the top management to do the appraisals of the employees by mapping the performance of their employees with their respective KRAs - Got the clear information about whether the company is going in the right direction or not - Reduced the time taken in decision-making from 2-3 months to a few weeks - Allowed the top management to take critical and real-time financial decisions >ERP Software implemented by LG LG had implemented ERP Software of Oracle. They selected CX Cloud of Oracle as they needed software, which was available on Cloud, to manage their 82,000 employees. **What does availability on Cloud mean?** Suppose you have multiple factories and you operate in multiple countries, then to manage your business operations, you can select any of the following two ways: 1. Invest in hardware: It means that you appoint a vendor to establish hardware and computer in your office or factory to manage your business operations. It will be very expensive for you. 2. Use a Cloud solution: If you take a Cloud solution from any vendor like Oracle, then you don’t have to invest in hardware. Vendors like Oracle have already invested billions of dollars for creating the Cloud infrastructure, to manage your business operations. You just have to pay them a monthly rental according to the size of your company in order to use their Cloud solution. *For example:* The investment made on the ERP software by LG must be high as it is a big scale company. But, your investment will depend on the size of your company. ### 2. `Business Case Study:` **Fuse Energy Drinks** >Challenges Faced by Fuse Energy Drinks Fuse Energy Drinks, a manufacturing company that produces energy drinks. Like all other bottling companies such as soft drink companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola, water bottle companies like Bisleri etc., Fuse Energy Drinks was also facing the biggest challenge, i.e. the challenge of: - Managing the supply chain or - Matching the supply with the demand for the product This challenge is also faced by the car industry wherein they need to match the demand and supply of their product in order to decrease their cost. Apart from them, every company producing any type of product like water bottles, chips, biscuits, energy drink etc. needs to understand that their business is completely dependent on the demand and supply of your products. Let us understand this challenge in detail. `Business Problem -` Matching Demand and Supply If you cannot predict the demand for your product: - You cannot bring efficiency in the supply of your products - You will never know the amount of raw material you require - You will never know how much production you should do - You will never know how much inventory you should maintain If you don’t have the above information, then your business growth will decline. So, it is important to know the demand for your product, but: How will you predict the demand for your products?, Or How will you make your business so efficient that you not only know the current demand for your product but can also estimate the demand for your product for the next 3, 6, 9 or 12 months? >For this, you need to implement an ERP software. When you get the power to predict the demand for your products, then to create the supply, you will know: - How much money should you raise from the market? - How much loan can you take from the bank? - How many employees do you need to hire? So, if you understand the demand and supply of your business, then you can take critical business decisions that will help you to grow your business enormously. >ERP Software Implemented by Fuse Energy Drinks Fuse Energy Drinks needed an ERP software having the following characteristics: - A low-cost software - Software specifically made for manufacturing companies. So, Fuse Energy Drinks selected Sage Accpac ERP software for implementation because this software was specifically made for manufacturing companies only.  >Can a businessman buy any ERP software for automating his business processes? You need to understand that ERP software is not common for all businesses. Every ERP company has made its niche. This means that particular ERP software will solve only a specific problem of business because every business process has different issues. *For example:* The issues of manufacturing are different from the issues of the supply chain. Similarly, the issues of technology are different from the issues of project management. So, you need to select an ERP software that solves your business problem. *For example:* If you are also a manufacturing company and want to manage your demand and supply, then you can also opt for Sage Accpac ERP software like Fuse Energy Drinks. ### 3. `Business Case Study:` MakeMyTrip.com MakeMyTrip.com is one of the biggest online ticketing companies in the world. It is a very popular company that deals in the railway, bus, and air ticket booking, hotel booking, travel tours booking etc. >Challenges faced by MakeMyTrip.com Some of the challenges faced by MakeMyTrip.com are: Though MakeMyTrip.com is just a website at the front end; but, at the backend, it has huge inventory in the form of information about thousands of hotel rooms, thousands of flights etc. So, they also face the challenge of matching demand and supply. Another big challenge for MakeMyTrip.com is customer satisfaction. For example, you booked a ticket on MakeMyTrip.com; but, you didn’t get the correct ticket or your ticket is not booked but your money has been deducted. Will you visit the website again? The answer is No.              This is the biggest challenge for MakeMyTrip.com. MakeMyTrip.com understood that they need to catch the customer signals or voice of the customers to grow faster. But, the challenge with MakeMyTrip.com was that they operate in “n” number of countries and “n” number of languages. So, how could they catch the customer signals? It is not possible for them to catch the customer signals physically. So, they implemented an ERP software.  >Why some companies implement multiple ERPs? The companies like MakeMyTrip.com, LG or Amazon that operate on a very large scale implement multiple ERPs to solve their business problems because as we have discussed, one ERP is made to solve one business problem. So, in this video, we are discussing an ERP that is implemented by MakeMyTrip.com to solve its one business problem, i.e. how to launch new products as soon as possible so that customer does not go to their competitors. For this, it is necessary that the customers get new experience. >ERP Implementation by MakeMyTrip.com Earlier, the strategy team of MakeMyTrip.com takes a lot of time to launch a new product because it is important to understand customers’ requirements before making a new product. When MakeMyTrip.com implemented ERP software, the voice of customers started capturing on a real-time basis. As a result, MakeMyTrip.com is able to launch new products in weeks instead of months. Today, the deals and discounts that you see at MakeMyTrip.com are not made by a team of people but it is done automatically by their ERP solution. The ERP solution of MakeMyTrip.com listens to the voice of customers carefully, tracks it, and makes sure that creative, deals and discounts are made and communicated automatically to every customer on a real-time basis. *For example:* You and your friend are at different locations and booking the same tickets at the same time from MakeMyTrip.com. You may found that you need to pay Rs. 10 extra than your friend to book the same ticket. This is not a mistake done by MakeMyTrip.com. But, it is the intelligent ERP software that knows you well as a customer. It knows that you can pay Rs. 10 extra to save time. But, time is not a critical factor for your friend, so, the software decides to give him the ticket at Rs. 10 less. This ERP software is so incredible. Outcome of ERP Implementation for MakeMyTrip.com: The average call handling time has been reduced to more than 50%. They are able to launch new products and deals and discounts within weeks instead of months. # ERP Implementation Steps - Go to Google and search nearby good ERP vendors - Tell them your business problems - Get suggestion from them on which ERP is better for you – a readymade solution or a customised solution - Decide the ERP you want to implement and ask the vendor to get it done for you