Business to Business Marketing

Class Activity II: Role Play

Group No. 7
Ankit Mangla (16191)
R. Priyanka (16207)
Divya Agrawal (16200)
Eshita Mohanty (16202)
Mohit Jain (16211)
Probir Bose (16220)
 Company Name: Siemens
Product: Gas Turbines

1. Based on the choice of organization, the group should decide on requirements the firm might
have to initiate the upgrade.

The organization belongs to the manufacturing sector. It caters to the needs of manufacturing,
utility and the energy sector. The product acts as a foundation good for the concerned clients
organizations.
The following requirements are a must in order to initiate the upgrade
a) Time required for the upgradation
b) Availability of the back-up systems to store data while the upgradation occurs
c) Prevention of losing existent data while the upgradation occurs
d) Analysis of the value addition with a special focus on the inventory management, supply
chain management and the Engineering and production department

2. Which of the three options did your group select as the best alternative

The group selected option 1 of significantly upgrading the present ERP system

3. What was the groups rationale for selecting this alternative

Department Rationale Choice

Official
IT Manager Being a global leader in turbine manufacturing industry, we have to 1
keep ourselves updated with the new technology. We are presently
using SAP R3 as an ERP solution which is already outdated few years
back. All our competitors are using the upgraded version of SAP that
is SAP HANA which results in better coordination and management.
If we upgrade from SAP R3 to SAP HANA, it will result in increase
in performance and accuracy as it works directly in memory database
resulting in faster response. The development and deployment of this
technology along with the migration from hardware database to
HANA database will require more than 2years.
 Operations Being the manufacturer and supplier of a critical product and a one- 3
Manager time investment product, quality management and relationships
throughout the supply chain is the quintessential requirement for the
company. Proper inventory management is required in order to prevent
any stock storage depreciation. Keeping all other factors in mind,
Option 3 seems perfect for inventory management, engineering and
production and the supply chain management.
Finance As option 2 is completely ruled out, between option 1&3, the 3
Manager department feels that option 3 is most feasible as with option 1 the
costs are very high and the payback period starts after 3 years which
increases the risk perspective in the sense that there is a higher
possibility of newer technologies coming to the market, which will
eventually reduce the value of our tech. Coupled with that maintaining
additional costs of implementing the new ERP system for a period of
3 years along with the price tag of $5 million will be a costly affair.
Compared to this option 1 is a better fit in terms of cost and time taken
to implement. Having said this, the fact that option 1 is a better fit in
terms of sales and revenue generation, which will even out the costs in
long term, the finance department is open for option 1 given a few
constraints in incurring additional cost is maintained.
HR Adopting the latest technology, will be important and has to be done 1
Manager eventually. So, with the view of adopting the latest technology, three
years would be a good time to train our existing resources and get on
board the specialized resources. Also, this would ensure that the risk is
minimal keeping in mind the probable employee turnover and
inefficiency that may result in spite of all other parameters being in
place
Marketing Sales being one of the main factors of revenue generation, should be 1
Manager one of the focus points while selecting an option. At the same time, it's
very important for us to manage our customers for which a high score
for CRM is required. Keeping in mind these things, my
recommendation would be option 1.
CEO Taking all the points into account, the final decision is aligned with 1
the rationale of improved sales and customer relationship
management. This criterion is very important to remain profitable
in the long run.

4. Were all the group members in agreement with the final decision?

No, the Operations Manager was not in agreement with the final decision. Apart from him, all
other managers agreed to the final decision either directly or were open for the option that was
finally decided upon.
5. Inside real business firms, do you think that the management will generally agree or are major
differences of opinion likely to occur? If so, what implications will these situations have in the
organisation?

In real business firms, all the functional departments have their own self-interests in pushing
their desirable options while a major change is about to be incorporated in the organization. The
motives can be personal ones seeking promotions and positive feedbacks while most of the
motives revolve around the want of a significant value addition to their own functional divisions
and making their present work less hectic. Departments like those of engineering and operations
would want minimal changes in the existing set-up as that would prevent the pain-staking task
of expertizing the new system. This may also cause disturbances and deviations from the present
routine set production limits.
So, its very much likely that major differences may occur among various functional divisions
during the implementation of such key decisions.

Marks assigned to other groups (out of 5)

Group no 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10
marks 3.75 3.75 4 3.75 4 3.50 4.25 3.75 4