` Proposal for the introduction of an ERP System in Joshua Arkwright & Sons Classical bicycle manufacturer Report Submission Data: 11th May 2010 Reported by: 09BSP046 Enterprise Resource Planning Module Group Assignment Table of Contents Section Page 1. Executive Summary 2. Company Situation Analysis 2.1 Company background 2.2 Company situation 2.2.1. Financial Condition 2.2.2. Market Condition 2.2.3. System 2.2.4. Human Recourse 2.3. About SAP R/3 3. Overall project goals 4. Priorities for computerisation 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 5. Evaluation of commercial feasibility: benefits 6. Project Plan References At …show more content…
It may be because of complex, ineffective flow in communication as a result of un-integrated information system in JAS. : Low performance in liquidity may be resulted from poor inventory management and ineffective costs control. Firstly, JAS is facing the cash flow problem because of having too many stocks in warehouse. Secondly, un-integrated information system brings some difficulties in costs control. In-timely and inaccurate customers’ financial data makes JAS difficult to retrieve debtors effectively. 2.2.2 Market The UK Government policies encourage citizens to use more bicycles instead of other transportations as possible as they can because of the congestion and air pollution. In addition, increasingly number of people has treated cycling as an exercise, trip and healthy lifestyle, which promotes the consumption of bicycle. These contribute to the boost of bicycle industry. However, JAS has gained relatively lower market share over the last few years. The level of competitive intensity has a significant impact on JAS’s sales and profit. Firstly, as a medium-sized company providing high-quality bicycles, JAS has been receiving increasing competition from its existing rivals who offer similar products but relatively lower price because of their economies of scale. Some rivals benefit from their high production or lower cost of material and labour, leading to competitive advantage in the marketplace, such as high quality with the relatively lower
Starting from a company of less than 75 workers and owning less than 20,000 SCU for production, research, quality assurance and conduct warranty work Off The Chain Bikes has doubled the plant capacity and hearing doubling the workforce within two short years. The company is successful by targeting and capturing lucrative market shares by heavily investing in the desired technical specs and design styles of one of the most influential Racing bikes. Our keen ability to thoroughly research market demands, predicting competitive strategies between the four market majority shareholders by reviewing and interpreting the marketing reports and our aggressive design and development plans have significantly increased our market share and increase shareholder value. Our core competencies and strategic goals will be realized by carefully following our established plans and aggressively price our bikes to increase total market share.
The company have generated very low operating cash flows, which is caused by a negative net income(16, 55) in 94,95, again with sales going down and cost of goods sold increasing. The company current ratio (2.3, 2.1, 2.5) in 93, 94, 95 are indicating satisfactory but when analyze quick ratio (1.1, 1.1, 1.3), and we also know that sales are down which mean more inventories. Now the account payable days has been increasing (49, 62, and 66). They have been delaying there payment which mean more cash on
Although the company seems to be profitable, it has faced shortage of cash. It happened due to increase in Accounts Receivable as well as Inventories. On the other hand, Accounts Payable does not increase that rapidly and difficulties regarding cash collection become evident. Furthermore, the cash collection cycle becomes larger (59 days in year 2003, while more than 70 in year 2006).
For the youth bike we decided to keep the advertising expenditure at 2 million in order to raise the awareness of this new product line. This also helps establish a good market share in case competitors also decide to launch the youth bike. Since we have a low capacity for the bike, we also decided to increase the price from $370 to $400, resulting in an increase in gross margin. With this increase, we are still producing at a high yet relatively low volume.
The high sales growth can be attributed to increasing SSS (same store sales) and also opening of new stores. The company is enjoying financial growth and high profitability as seen from ROS, ROA and ROE. All the ratios are showing an average upward trend and that too, over a period of several years. As far as liquidity is concerned, the company is extremely liquid and is enjoying a quick ratio of more than 2. So, it is able to easily meet its short term debt obligations and currently faces no financial difficulties. As far as inventory is concerned it is a very small part of the liquidity and thus does have any significant effect on liquidity.
J reflects department store chain. This industry is a retail business; therefore, there is a large amount of inventories. This industry also has high accounts receivable because usually customers pay with credit cards which are billed at the end of the month. However, sometimes, customers forget to pay their bills on time, and the bills are brought to next month. Therefore, the collection period is approximately 2 months.
In an effort to remedy such disproportion between inventory and demand, in 1995 SDI began to negligently issue credit lines. As exemplified by Table 2, due to such leniency net sales continued to increase between 1995 and 1997 (Appendix A). However, as illustrated by Table 1 the relaxed credit standards caused a 39% spike in accounts receivable from 1994 to 1995 (Appendix A). Consequently, the increase in inventory and accounts receivable negatively impacted the current ratio of the firm. As a result, the firm’s liquidity dropped significantly below industry average in 1995 to 1.90 from 2.96, well above the 2.25 average, in 1994 (Appendix C). Therefore, the cash flow of the firm was negatively affected by the issuance of credit as accounts receivable continued to rise.
Consumers are not limited to a single market, many of them will be purchasing multiple bikes, but all of them have specific preferences. Successful company will meet customer’s needs and maximize sales by growing the potential market size as well as taking sales from competitors.
Amy Westervelt, author of the article Bike-Sharing Grows Up: New Revenue Models Turn a Nice Idea into Good Business, informs the audience of how bike-sharing is exponentially growing worldwide and how it’s affecting consumers, the environment and businesses. She illustrates this by firstly providing a brief history, secondly introducing growth and fundamentality and thirdly by elaborating on its impact on a wide scale. Throughout the beginning of the article Amy Westervelt attests that in past years the launch of bike-sharing in the U.S. has faced adversity, however, its future has shifted into a promising one with as far as having much fame in other countries, due to better management, such as in France, China, India and now the U.S. Furthermore,
The problem presented by Joseph-Armand Bombardier is the upcoming third round of ERP implementation in his organization. Even though a big improvement over the efficiency and success of execution between the first ERP round (Mirabel plant) and second round (Saint-Laurent plant), there is still room for improvement.
With respect to the company's balance sheet, the company is in a decent financial position despite the losses. In terms of liquidity, the company has remained liquid
The Porters model is built upon the assumption that strategy development is significantly influenced by the external environment. The Porters five forces are the threat of new entrants, the intensity of rivalry, the threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and the bargaining power of suppliers (Magretta, 2012). The threat of new entrants in the motorcycle industry is moderate due to the moderate industry growth and high entry barriers. The industry is based on moderated economies of scale, moderate switching costs and the high cost of developing and promoting brands. The high barriers to entry are due to the required high initial capital and high fixed costs to set-up the provider and production facilities. The overall threat of new entrants in this industry is moderate.
* Not very attractive because of slim profit margins; it is critical for companies to have excellent financial management and inventory management skills to control cash flow, reduce debt, and keep costs low.
Furthermore, SAS 47 notes that those accounts that require subjective judgment in determining their value generally present an increased risk of error. In addition, those accounts that represent a large percentage of total assets generally present a greater risk of potential litigation because a small percentage error in an account with a relatively large balance can result in a material misstatement. Thus, as table 1 shows, the study wants to follow Bell et al. (1991) to control inventory intensiveness, receivable intensiveness, cash position, sales growth and sales size: Inventory intensiveness = inventory / sales; Receivable intensiveness = receivable / inventory; Cash position = cash / (sales (net) – operating income before depreciation). Cash position measures are included as indicators of the client's ability to generate adequate future cash flows. The industry- standardized measures should provide an indication of the strength of the client's current working capital or cash position (i.e., a degree of deficiency). The paper expects a positive trend in either cash-to-fund expenditures or the current ratio for survived companies to imply a tendency toward better and better future cash or working capital position.
- good products: unique and beautiful bikes, although regarded as less efficient and reliable in comparison to Japanese models