p. 163 · PDF 167

1 - 4 Business Management System

Business management system is an integrated system for achieving optimization and high efficiency of business. This is composed of a system that targets the entire company, a system that targets a specific business or department, a system that supports decision-making of the management and such other system.

(1) ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a concept for achieving higher efficiency of business through integrated management of corporate activities from the viewpoint of

effective utilization and optimal distribution of management resources.

In companies, mostly there is an integrated business management system based on an ERP package that centrally controls management resources. However, in order to introduce an ERP package, internal consensus and policy-making by the management are necessary for revising the current business operations in view of the prerequisite business operation model, and redesigning the business process of the company as a whole. · 1 question

(2) SCM (Supply Chain Management)

SCM (Supply Chain Management) refers to the management of the flow of product supply from procurement of material and components up to manufacturing, distribution, and sales as a “supply chain” mainly in the manufacturing industry and distribution industry. Through sharing and management of information with related departments and other companies, the SCM system helps achieve total optimization of the business process (e.g., · 1 question

p. 164 · PDF 168

shortening the time for delivery, reducing dead stock).

Enlarge original visual

Source visual description

The manufacturing supply chain runs vertically through supplier, manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer and consumer. Downward product/material labels and the left flow-of-goods/information arrow contrast with upward money labels and the right flow-of-money/information arrow.

(3) CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) refers to the management of the relationship with customers. This is a concept that the most important aspect of a business strategy is to value the current customers and to retain them, because the cost of maintaining an acquired customer is much less as compared with the cost of developing a new customer. The CRM system is a system that performs centralized and continuous management of customer information in order to retain and manage a favorable relationship with the existing customers. It should be noted that the CRM system is rarely used alone, but is mostly used as part of the ERP package or SFA. · 2 questions

(4) KM (Knowledge Management)

KM (Knowledge Management) is a technique by which the management and employees accumulate and share the knowledge and knowhow acquired from business activities, and the knowledge scattered within the company, such as the creativity, behavioral ability, and ideas · 1 question

p. 165 · PDF 169

of employees, and use it for problem solving as a management resource (i.e., knowledge) of the entire company. In the KM system, in addition to the use of the knowledge database (or knowledge base) in which the internal information of the company is accumulated, artificial intelligence is also used. · 1 question

(5) SFA (Sales Force Automation)

SFA (Sales Force Automation) is a support activity that aims at improving the efficiency and quality of sales activities by using IT, and thereby increasing the sales and profit. There are many cases where the sales staff has a large number of tasks outside the company, which makes it difficult to manage the schedule and sales activities. Thus, a system that supports sales activities by making use of a mobile PC and cellphone becomes necessary. In the SFA system, there are mostly the following five functions of the support activity that improve the productivity of sales activities.

p. 166 · PDF 170

(6) DSS (Decision Support System)

DSS (Decision Support System) is a system for supporting the decision-making of corporate management. It is composed of the OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) system, which performs analysis of data accumulated in a huge database (i.e., data warehouse) for information analysis, an expert system, and so on.

(7) EIP (Enterprise Information Portal)

EIP (Enterprise Information Portal) is a system that integrates the information of various systems (i.e., business management systems) and databases that exist in the company, and enables its consolidated display and search on the computer screens of employees (i.e., users). It incorporates the functions of a portal site, such as a search engine, into the business system, and is quickly in widespread use.