Erhardt+Leimer India Limited: Strategic Transformation through ERP

The July-September 2000 (Vol 25, No 3) issue of Vikalpa had published a Management Case titled Erhardt+ Leimer India Limited by S Kaushika Madhavan. In this issue, we feature 11 responses from Mahima Balakrishnan, Sujith Kumar Chandrasekaran and Bharat B Lalwani; Somya Bhatnagar, Samrat Chanda, Abbey Thomas and Sanchali Chakraborty; Anindita Ghosh, A Preeti, Y Mallikarjuna Reddy and Piyush Goyal; Mohit Kumar Jakhodia, Harry Jose, Saurabh Mittal, Yashpal Krishna Das and Abhishek Bansal; Pavan Jolly, Nidhi Gupta, Purvi Modi, Sheel Shah, Shantanu Mazumdar and Santosh Kurian T; Neeraj Kaushlendra, Sptarshi Ganguly and Sushmita Biswas; S Rajaram; V Venkata Rao; Dipankar Roy, Somnath Bondopadhaya, Maulik Singhal and Rajat Shrivastava; Anand Sridharan, V T Bharadwaj and N Ravichandran; and C Venkat. Erhardt+Leimer India Limited (ELIL), in the business of textile and related equipment manufacturing, is facing increased competition, stagnation in revenue, and eroded profitability. ELIUs parent company in Germany had implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions to enhance its effectiveness and had offered ELIL some licences free of cost. Mr S Rajaram, Vice President (Operations) of ELIL, though excited about the possibility of adopting ERP solutions is also concerned about implementation issues. They are: inadequate computing infrastructure, need for substantial investment, need to improve process orientation, data discipline, the prevailing organizational culture, and the high rate of failure in ERP implementation. Considering that he has to make a recommendation to the Board on ERP implementation, he is wondering whether ELIL is prepared for this change.