This is the first of several assignments that will use the same company that you will select here. For this assignment, select a manufacturing company around which to build elements of an e-business implementation plan. The company must be a potential candidate for a complete e-business implementation including ERP, supply chain management and customer relationship management. The e-business implementation may be new, or you might think of it as updating an existing system. Be sure to read the studies in this unit and the course project description and scoring guide, which contain suggestions and guidelines for making your company selection.

It is strongly recommended that you use one of the companies that meet project requirements listed in the Project Content Examples study in this unit.

For this assignment you are to research the company you have selected, focusing on the benefits of an ERP implementation. Be sure to cover the following points:

Briefly describe the company and its products.

Describe the business processes including departments that would be affected by an e-business implementation.

Discuss the value an ERP implementation or update would bring to the organization.

Describe strategies for optimizing a successful ERP implementation.

Describe strategies for reducing the chances of ERP implementation failure.

You should be able to use some of the concepts that have been presented in the second discussion in this unit.