SOLVE is a student consultancy organization located in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Utrecht. They are providing tailor-made advice for social enterprises and organizations in the non-profit sector. By doing this, they are not only improving the sustainability of those organizations but also contributing to the professional development of student consultants.
During the interviews with (former) board members, we found out that an IT strategy is missing. In the past it wasn’t really necessary to have one because everything was quite clear. However, the last few years the organization has encountered a large growth. This growth makes the current google drive as information platform and Gmail and WhatsApp as communication channels not suitable for the business strategy. The following quote from an interview illustrates this perfectly: “We currently store all our data in Google Drive. This is not ideal as data gets lost all the time so everybody also keeps backups of their files on their computer. This results in not up-to-date files in the Google Drive file”.
So we have been brainstorming about possible solutions for this problem and concluded that a mobile ERP system would be the perfect solution to align SOLVE’s business strategy with an IT strategy. The goal of an ERP namely is to: “facilitate the flow of information so business decisions can be data-driven. ERP software suites are built to collect and organize data from various levels of an organization to provide management with insight into key performance indicators (KPIs) in real time” (SearchSAP, 2016). Besides, an ERP can also be used as a “central repository for documents, notes and communication for the whole company”. (Sage Software Solution, 2016)
Based on those characteristics of an ERP we are convinced that an implementation of it will increase the productivity, information visibility and flexibility of the organization. Besides, the most important improvement will probably be the ability to use the ERP as formal communication channel. While in the current situation, project updates are being done by WhatsApp and telephone calls whereby a lot of information gets lost.
Finally, we also made some recommendations for a successful implementation. Firstly, we suggest the implementation of an open-source ERP system. The main reason why we selected an open-source ERP is that this will be much cheaper compared to an ERP system made by a business software developer. But of course, this would bring some safety and security issues, that should be taken into account. Other things that should be taken into account are the needed support of the board members and training for the users of the system. Lastly, it will be crucial to measure the perceived usefulness. The system should be an added value for everyone. Because then and only then, a mobile ERP system will be able to make SOLVE ready for the future.
References used in this summary:
Sage Software Solution. (2016). ERP as Document Management System. [online] Available at: https://www.sagesoftware.co.in/blogs/erp-as-document-management-system/ [Accessed 6 Oct. 2016].
SearchSAP. (2016). What is ERP (enterprise resource planning)?. [online] Available at: http://searchsap.techtarget.com/definition/ERP [Accessed 6 Oct. 2016].
Team 50
