Hershey Foods Cooperation Case Assignment
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ERP implementation failure of the Hershey Food Corporation in 1999. The discussion will include a summary of Hershey Food Corporation, the things that worked well and the things that did not work well during the implementation and the recommendations that were made related to the IT objectives.
BACKGROUND
The Hershey Company is the largest chocolate manufacturer in North America. The headquarters are located in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894 as the Hershey Chocolate Company which was an offshoot of Milton’s original candy venture, Lancaster Caramel Company. Hershey is known as one of the oldest chocolate companies in the United States, and has become an American icon due to its chocolate bar which was released during WWII. ("The Hershey Company." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.) Hershey's products are sold in about seventy countries worldwide. Hershey’s employs about 14,000 employees and has net sales in excess of $6.6 billion.
ERP IMPLEMENTATION
Hershey started updating its hardware and software in 1997. In 1999, Hershey was on the last leg of implementation when it made a grave mistake in the implementation process. Hershey had selected the services of three vendors SAP AGs (SAP), Siebel Systems and Manugistics for the project. Some of the modules were implemented January 1999; however, the remaining modules that were supposed to be implemented by April 1999 were delayed and were not implemented until July 1999. This overlapped with the time when the company usually started receiving huge orders for the impending Halloween and Christmas seasons. In order to counteract the delay, Hershey sped up the implementation process by using what has been referred to as Big Bang Implementation, where several modules were implemented simultaneously. Many of those modules could not be tested due to lack of time...