RUNNING HEAD: STRATEGIC PLANNING

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

NAME

INSTITUTION
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Executive Summary

The major uptake of technology by companies across the globe has created the need for

change in these organizations. Such technological innovations including cloud computing have

been utilized to improve services and products offered to customers. New business process and

financial products have been developed as a result of the innovation. New markets for both retail

clients and financial institutions have been developed. This is illustrated in detail below with

major aim of streamlining CRM and ERP with existing business process and thus increase

efficiency.

AMP Limited is a company offering financial services in New Zealand and Australia

with investment and superannuation products, banking products, financial advice on home loans

and savings accounts. It offers its services to a wide range of customers across the globe. AMP

Limited is headquartered in Sydney with its main customers being individuals, corporates,

institutions and counterparts across the globe. AMP Limited is considering adopting cloud

computing technology to cut operation costs in IT investments and divert the extra time for

market solutions. The present ERP solutions used by the company is a five years old technology

and constantly incurs extra costs as result of outsourced maintenance and support. The CRM

system of the company is immobile and outdated hence acts as a hindrance to implementation of

the major upgrade by an outsourced vendor in managed services and cloud computing

(Choudhury, 2014).

Develop a future state of the organization

The current ERP solution for AMP Limited requires both external maintenance and

support. AMP Limited is considering integrating enterprise resource planning (ERP) and
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customer relationship management (CRM) software systems to boost productivity and streamline

business operations (Choudhury, 2014). Use of the cloud computing technology has enabled

various financial institutions to monitor and report customers saving, trading, and investment

patterns. AMP Limited will use the information to update their CRM systems on a real-time

basis, and the relevant customers will be contacted in case of price changes or a new product.

New financial products can be marketed easily through the platform by directly contacting

customers using very minimal costs on marketing and drive sales through the CRM systems. The

conventional, traditional customer acquisition and marketing strategy have been rendered

obsolete in the face of adoption of the new technology. Furthermore, these methods tend to be

more costly and ineffective in light of marketing and customer acquisition.

For example, the ERP is five years old, and it incurs maintenance costs that add up to the

total operating expenses. The CRM solution for the company is immobile hence becoming a

hindrance to upgrading to cloud computing and improved managed services. The CRM solution

of the company is obsolete, and they are required to be updated to match the unique business

needs of the enterprise.

Identify and articulate the way to move from the current state to the future state

AMP Limited is planning to reduce IT investments and invest the extra time and

resources for marketing activities. This can be achieved through its adoption of the cloud

computing services. Therefore, the primary investment in the strategic planning process will

involve highlighting major factors that make cloud computing a major investment for the

company.
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For the ERP system to be effective in a dynamic environment of financial innovation,

ERP systems are required to be predicated on real-time information. Therefore, financial systems

like HFT (High-frequency trading) will depend on financial market data and real-time stock to

execute trades that are profitable. As a consequence, the methods employed by financial

institutions in generating profits and value creation to investors have changed. This has led to

many successful firms depending on artificial intelligence in the process of making a decision.

Alignment with the organization existing business strategies

Customer information can be updated with ease instantly into the CRM. For example, to

increase the efficiency of employees, ERP and CRM provide better access to valuable

information in real-time. Real-time information is required by the ERM systems to create value

for investors and generates extra profits. Great success achieved include increased growth rate

for its customers base, improved performance for the company and increased interactions of the

customer with the company.

Alignment with the organizations existing business processes

Both CRM and ERP provides a complete view of the company’s customers. Such

perception includes prospects, sales, and support, finance and accounting which are integrated

together to provide a complete view into the customer’s order history, buying habits, customer

needs, account standings, and preferences. This information provides the company with better

knowledge into the customer base and creating lasting relationships with customers and hence

determines the future growth potential of the customer. Furthermore, it might help one to

prospect the needs of the customer before the customer does. Therefore, it is recommended that
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AMP Limited adopt the cloud computing technology for them to remain relevant in the industry

and maintain a large customer base. The concept of the Internet of Things is irrelevant as far as

company value offered to clients are concerned.

Strategic plan, business case and conceptual design

A viable strategic plan should be developed by AMP Limited as it plans to integrate

cloud computing into its financial management system and to allow systematic adoption of the

cloud environment. Such strategic plan should incorporate germane factors making cloud

computing important such as customer satisfaction and costs, performance, costs and company’s

profits. The projected impact of implementing cloud computing in the long term and short term

basis, the benefits expected from the integration of cloud computing in comparison to the

previous state should be assessed. Implementation of the ERP is expected to allow the users to

gain familiarity with the systems and terms of technology and sets expectation which makes

transitions smoother.

Risk management

Integration of ERP management system is not without risk. The team should be involved

throughout the process of decision making process. Extra attention should be paid to additional

services and products introduced such as data warehouses and report generation. Specific

security concerns should be raised by the vendor offering the software. ERP database should be

backed up at least once for every week, or daily back up should be recommended to ensure

maximum protection. Access to ERP based system should be defined and duty segregation rules

observed. Areas involving business process should be analyzed in every material respect and key

responsibilities defined.
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Adoption and change management

The main factors influencing the change in the company include external change drivers,

organizational culture, and organizational leadership plus the increasing rate of technological

adoption on a global scale.

The traditional drivers for internal change include organizational culture and leadership.

They are the main influential factors that will determining the adoption rate for cloud computing

technology and its usage (Neslin, 2014). The management of the organization and the firm’s

employees’ willingness to apply the new technology shall solely influence the efficiency of the

technology of the cloud-based technology used inside the firm.

Management of stakeholders

The firm is expected to have high competition from other firms and increased rate of

adoption of technology on a global scale is the main external driver for change in the

organization. High competition in the industry as driven by the high rate of innovation in the

financial sector will compel AMP Limited to integrate cloud competing technology for it to

achieve the advantageous competitive position (Korasidis et al., 2016). Furthermore, the

company will have to continuously adopt emerging technologies for it to remain relevant with

customers in the constantly changing industry that has consistently adopted technological

advances developed by other industries.

Budgeting and Cost Management

ERP budget is influenced by the hosting option selected for the software. For example,

dealing with onsite software will require a significant amount of investment for server place and

middleware. The team should also be prepared to budget for licensing see on upfront. Room for
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extra IT employees for server maintenance and training (Choudhury, 2014). Therefore, I

recommend the company to adopt the cloud computing since you will not have to install

machinery and hosting servers on-site. Instead a monthly subscription fee shall be paid

depending on the number of seats in the company. Overall, cloud computing has much lower

total cost of ownership compared to on-site server. This makes it best option for smaller

companies aiming at reducing operational costs.

Identification of critical success factors (CSF)

Following successful implementation and adoption of cloud computing technology in

both the CRM and ERP system, the main determining factor that requires being considered by

the company is its financial performance about the adoption of the new technological

development and innovative sales of their financial products (Nair, 2016). This will act as a

bonafide demonstration of the success story of the company after integrating the new

technological innovations into its system. The quality of investment undertaken by the company

can be used to assess the financial performance of the company. For example, through

investment banking, undervalued shares should be purchased automatically while the overvalued

shares should be sold automatically using the ERP system integrated into the cloud computing

system.

The growth rate of the customer base should be considered as another major success

metric in the adoption of the cloud computing technology adopted by the company (Vegad et al.,

2014). The frequency of interaction of these customers with the company should be assessed.

Products focused on specific needs of the customer could be generated by the company with an

adoption of the latest CRM system. This can be attained by directly marketing them to the

prospective customers using the CRM Leads and hence supplement the duty of trading, saving
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and investment among its client base. This can be assessed by measuring the rate of growth of

interaction between the firm and the customer using technological or physical interactions.

Relevance and quality of conclusions and recommendations.

AMP Limited is considering attracting a large customer base within the industry and

remain competitive. The company should consider using CRM and ERP systems as a base in its

cloud computing resource base (Wang, 2014). This will facilitate real-time interaction with

customers and increase the efficiency of transaction hence lowering costs thus reducing the

operating costs of the company. Additional value will be created to clients through the adoption

of new financial services and products hence increasing the likelihood of client retention rate.

The Internet of Things is expected to have an insignificant impact on the value of services and

products offered to customers (Thai, 2015).

Reference

Wang, S., & Wang, H. (2014). a survey of open source enterprise resource planning (ERP)

Systems. International Journal of Business and Information, 9(1), 1.

Nair, G., & Syuhada, K. (2016). Stochastic Volatility Model with Burr Distribution Error:

Evidence from Australian Stock Returns. Thailand Statistician, 14(1), 1-14.

Thai, L. (2015). Shareholder Class Actions: A Critical Analysis of the Procedure under Part IVA

of the Federal Court of Australia Act. UW Austl. L. Rev., 40, 138.

Korasidis, V. A., Wagstaff, B. E., Gallagher, S. J., Duddy, I. R., Tosolini, A. M. P., Cantrill, D.

J., & Norvick, M. S. (2016). Early angiosperm diversification in the Albian of southeast
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Australia: implications for flowering plant radiation across eastern Gondwana. Review of

Palaeobotany and Palynology, 232, 61-80.

Vegad, K., Madurwar, M., & Ralegaonkar, R. (2014). Application of AV-ERP system for on-site

project monitoring. Construction Innovation, 14(4), 518-531.

Neslin, S. A. (2014). Customer Relationship Management (CRM). In The History of Marketing

Science (pp. 289-317).

Choudhury, M. M., & Harrigan, P. (2014). CRM to social CRM: the integration of new

technologies into customer relationship management. Journal of Strategic

Marketing, 22(2), 149-176.