Cat Corp (CC) has grown dramatically over the past few years, mostly through small mergers and acquisitions. These mergers and acquisitions have helped the company grow, but at the same time have caused tremendous stress and pressure on the systems used at CC. In particular, there are now over 50 different transaction processing systems (TPS) used at CC, many of which are redundant or are unable to communicate and share data with other necessary TPS. Many of these systems run on different hardware and software platforms, and some of the systems are very old. This overall situation has caused several issues at CC, including missed payroll, and most recently, the publication of financial statements that later turned out to be incorrect. Part of these issues are related to the current systems, but Mr. Hank believes that part of the problem may also be due to their current processes. In addition to these problems, CC has had tremendous difficulties in their abilities to access quality data to help them make decisions.

In addition to the inability to gain access to quality data to make decisions, Mr. Hank realizes that even with good quality data, CC has no infrastructure or capabilities to use data to help them make decisions. Mr. Hank realizes that he needs something to help CC make quality decisions, or they risk the future growth of the company.

Mr. Hank has heard about Enterprise Systems (ES) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and wonders if this could help his organization with the systems problems they are having? Explain to Mr. Hank what ES and ERP are, specifically describing how it might help CC. Ensure you discuss the advantages and challenges of ERP, ensuring that you provide specific details on how these apply to CC and the situation they are in as well as the issues they are having. Finally, provide Mr. Hank with some specific hints and tips that may aid his organization in the selection of and implementation of an ERP system.