Case Study: Application of ERP in Business Management

Shanghai Yimin Department Store Co., Ltd. was established in December 1993. It was restructured from the original state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises. The company issued RMB common stocks and its registered capital expanded from 50.33 million yuan at the time of opening to the current level. of 169.88 million yuan. It is the first comprehensive department store retail and wholesale enterprise to establish a joint-stock system in Huaihai Road Commercial Street. The company takes department stores, watches, glasses, gold and silver jewelry and other famous and specialized stores and time-honored enterprises as its leaders, and opens professional specialty branches and counters all over the country. In 1997, the business structure was further adjusted, and the capital operation moved closer to high-quality enterprises. The operating performance of its main professional stores, Shanghai Watch Store, Ancient and Modern Underwear Company, Red Star Eyewear Company, Shanghai Bedding Company, and Longfeng Jewelry Store, ranked among the best in the same industry nationwide. In the four years since its establishment, the company has gradually developed in the direction of capital management. The net assets increased from 17.77 million yuan before the reform to 451.2936 million yuan, and the net asset value increased 25 times, entering the era of "Yimin Department Store" being popular.

ERP and Business Management

Although ERP is a management idea developed based on MRP II, it has surpassed the traditional manufacturing industry in terms of functions and technology and extended to Various other industries. In terms of management concept, ERP has broken through the original way of only managing internal resources of the enterprise, integrating customer needs with the internal manufacturing activities of the enterprise and the resources of suppliers, which is more suitable for the needs of the market economy.

The application of ERP in enterprises involves a series of practical issues such as the enterprise's production and operation mechanism, traditional management methods and management foundations. Therefore, enterprises that introduce ERP systems generally have difficulties in implementation, long cycles, and repeated problems. Too much, slow results, etc. In the construction of the management system, Yimin Department Store divided the entire implementation process into several stages: "Proposal - Research - Inspection - Development - Implementation - Acceptance - Results", and has taken a steady path forward.

Personalization of commercial software

Shanghai Yimin Department Store Co., Ltd. is one of the earliest companies in Shanghai to use computers for financial information management. It is also a commercial listed company on Huaihai Road. The geographical locations of more than a dozen subsidiaries are relatively scattered, and the nature of the subsidiaries is complex, including hotels, supermarkets, real estate and other industries. Complex business, large business volume, and cross-regional operations are problems faced by the company. The ERP system needed by the company is an information management system that can better meet the enterprise's multi-industry, cross-regional, multi-supplier and sales channel business management model. This system should make full use of advanced computer technology to provide users with flexible flexibility and configurable features.

Yimin Management Information System was founded in the second half of 1995. At that time, the domestic management software market was still in the financial software stage, and the financial software at that time was mainly accounting type. How to systemize and establish a management information system? After repeated research and weighing, Yimin Company finally decided to use the "secondary development of commercial software" method to build it, that is, to purchase commercial financial software that meets the requirements, and then cooperate with professional software companies. Conduct secondary development based on actual needs. We conducted a feasibility study based on the computer technology and industry characteristics at the time, and finally reached a consensus and determined the four basic principles of "technology must follow the trend, investment must be protected, management software must be strong, and professional companies must be strong." Ensure the smooth application of the personalized management system.

The structure of Yimin Management Information System

Yimin Management Information System mainly consists of the following parts.

1. Company Headquarters

The Company Headquarters adopts the popular Client/Sever architecture and relies on the superior performance of large-scale relational databases to ensure the security, reliability, integrity and consistency of financial data. , greatly improving data processing capabilities and system operating efficiency.

The basic configuration is as follows:

· Use DATA GENERAL minicomputer DG Aviion as the server;

· Use COMPAQ, IBM486/66 8RAM as the workstation, and the operating system is Winows;

·Adopts TCP/IP communication protocol, and the server and workstation are connected by coaxial cables and repeaters;

·The operating system is DG Unix;

·Adopt SYBASE 10 FOR UNIX database system.

2. Branches

Each branch and subsidiary is connected to the headquarters through MODEM. This can make data transmission convenient, timely and cost-effective, and ensure that the headquarters can query and compile statistics on the data of each branch and subsidiary at any time.

3. Financial management

Financial management software should cover businesses in a variety of industries, and interfaces should be maintained between each module to maintain the integrity of the system; each subsystem should It can be implemented independently and has relative independence to meet the needs of each subsidiary.

Based on the above needs, we began to select partners. Several software companies in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and other areas were inspected respectively. In August 1995, we established contact with Inspur Group General Software Company and learned that Inspur Guoqiang's financial software adopts a Client/Server architecture design, uses the large database SYBASE as the back-end database management software, and can run on minicomputers and Unix workstations. Mainly network systems, and in addition to financial software, the company is also involved in other industries such as commerce and hotels, and has strong vitality and competitiveness. Guoqiang Financial Software was also the domestic financial management software that could meet the requirements of benefiting the people at that time. The "commercialized software fixed-point development" proposed by Inspur Group General Software Company, which allows users to gradually and smoothly transition to comprehensive management, made Yimin finally choose Inspur Software Company.

Implementation Analysis

With the continuous development of the market economy, commercial enterprises need to improve their comprehensive utilization capabilities of resources (funds, manpower, information, materials, equipment, technology, transactions, etc.) through Effective processing of information flow achieves effective control and management of business flow, logistics, and capital flow. Traditional financial software is mainly aimed at the financial accounting of the financial department, focusing on capital flow, and cannot meet the current needs of enterprises. Yimin Department Store has established a comprehensive enterprise information management system with financial management as the core according to the characteristics of its subordinate companies of different nature and scale, and adheres to the principle of "efficiency-driven, overall planning, key breakthroughs, step-by-step implementation, and promotion and application". Tongsoft launched a comprehensive cooperation. So far, the Guoqiang Commercial MIS system has been implemented for the Shanghai Bedding Company to realize front-end and back-end management, inventory control and capital flow control of the business; the Guoqiang Hotel Management System has been implemented for the Jinchen Hotel on Huaihai Road. Comprehensive management of the hotel's front desk reservation, payment, reception, guest room management, phone billing, business management, catering and recreation management, phone billing, warehouse management, etc.; the entire company's information integration, management, control, and analysis have reached reached a certain level.

Yimin Management Information System has the following main features.

1. Taking transaction processing as the starting point to expand the breadth and depth of management

Yimin Management Information System’s processing of economic business has expanded from the financial department to various business departments, and the management of transactions The processing is strictly in accordance with the provisions of the financial system and adds unique rationalization methods, thus achieving a relatively complete integration of financial operations and the unification of capital flow and logistics.

2. Complete functions, closely integrated with finance, commerce, hotels, etc.

The financial part of Yimin Management Information System includes accounting processing, reports, salary management, fixed asset management, and inventory Management, sales management, procurement management, internal banking, auxiliary management, data center, summary/consolidated statements, comprehensive analysis, remote query and other more than ten subsystems; between financial system and business management system, hotel management system and other business processing systems Interfaces are left to closely integrate the financial system with business, hotel and other systems.

The system can easily complete the following functions:

·Original voucher reading: read the required original vouchers from each business subsystem;

·Original voucher review: review the required original vouchers Confirm and review the original vouchers passed by the business;

·Original voucher transmission: Transmit the original documents that need to be transmitted to the business subsystem after review or other processing;

· Original voucher query: query the original vouchers passed from the business subsystem;

·Accounting voucher preparation: prepare financial accounting vouchers based on various original vouchers passed from each business subsystem;

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· Automatic generation of accounting vouchers: For financial processing with fixed voucher entries, the user defines the formation method of accounting vouchers according to the formation method of voucher entry data, and automatically forms accounting vouchers according to the user-defined method. certificate. A large number of repetitive tasks in monthly financial processing are automatically completed through the computer, and the vouchers are transferred to the financial system through this function for financial review;

·Accounting voucher transmission: the prepared accounting vouchers, Transfer it to the financial system for review and accounting

3. Better applicability and flexibility

The construction of Yimin Management Information System follows the "secondary development of general software "The commercial software has been adjusted and modified according to the actual situation of the enterprise, so that it can be better promoted and applied in the enterprise.

Implementation experience

The success of ERP is "three-thirds depends on technology and seventy-percent depends on implementation." There are several main stages in the implementation of Yimin management system, such as the implementation of financial management system, implementation of business Effective pilot work has been carried out on the MIS management system and the implementation of hotel management system. “Piloting” is one of the keys to the success of our application. The pilot operation can solve the following problems:

· Test whether the standards set by each management link meet the actual requirements of each unit, and propose suggestions or methods for improving the standards;

· Inspect Whether the functions of each software are correct, find out the coding errors in the system, improve the operating efficiency of the software, and strive to make the software more mature, more practical and easier to operate through trial operation;

·Comprehensive promotion for the next step , apply the information management system, accumulate experience, identify problems, and make preparations in all aspects.

"In-depth analysis, long-term vision, leadership's attention, and cooperation from all parties" are the principles of Yimin's implementation of information management systems; in addition, finding a reliable partner is also a key link to the success of system implementation. one. As a conceptual system, ERP manages all aspects of the enterprise. This is not something that a simple software system can solve. It is closely related to the entire consciousness, concept, and management level of the enterprise, and requires a step-by-step process.