Strategic E-Business Carl Zeiss Supplier Company †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Strategic E-Business Carl Zeiss Supplier Company. Answer: Initiatives by Carl Zeiss company with its supplier company Carl Zeiss a globally known supplier of optical and optoelectronic products. The firm headquarters is Oberkochen, having over 14000 workers. Due to the rapid increase in an importance of integrated optician chain system for one of its division the Ophthalmic Products Division, there grew a need for this section to implement the logistic initiative to focus the needs of individual chain sharply (Galliers and Leidner, 2014). This division IT function decided to make a reduction on the integrations time total time in the recent chains to the input Zeiss system by creating a much lean and flexibility structure to enable suppliers to enhance online ordering system and supply chain visibility. To ensure that the above objectives fulfilled, the OPD evaluated two initiatives as an integration platform to standardize all interfaces on this sector which are; SAP Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI) This initiative is in the OPD IT department for a pilot project. SAP XI is a strategic application system for Carl Zeiss application development and most of its interfaces are moving towards and away from SAP. OPD applied SAP XI in development and a production function and used two interfaces in XI (Demil et.al, 2015). The installation and fundamental interface development process to the IT department was carried out by a consultant from SAP. The initial phase was responsible for sending all changes on prices from SAP R/3 to the products catalog application while the second phase was enabling all physical moving from a customization production function to SAP R/3. Completed installation took 40 workdays on the two interfaces including the designing, putting codes, the testing process and deployment. These phases were successfully installed in regular production system making the pilot project seen a success and OPD based its integration plan on SAP XI (Gerow et.al, 2015). Several challenges like staff need to get used to a new way of thinking involving a single hub where all the data passed through and the incompatibility between the present version tools and the new was a challenge. The IT function plans to restore four of its main processes and replaces them with automatic system of SAP XI version three. The primary objectives of the SAP were to ensure faster time-to-market, flexible infrastructure, and reduced integration cost. Integrating International Partners Online Due to the increasingly global needs, Carl Zeiss company had to change to better performing process systems and integrate partnering companies through internet particularly those who handle on site customer equipment maintenance and quickly share information on products and services. The company had to transit from SAP R/3 software to my SAP ERP to build a more future-oriented and more efficient IT structures which in turn the company decided to use SAP Ramp-Up (Gerow et.al, 2014). Using SAP Ramp-Up system its easy send feedback and ideas from development function to the SAP project on development. The main issue during the upgrade was to improve relationship with partners using Web-based processes. Additional implementation security, the SAP Going Live check service which was is a free package of my SAP ERP ramp-up system. The upgraded service analyzed core business functions, safeguarded the companys go-live process with the right performing parameters. SAP Ramp-up acted as the pri mary contact channel for the SAP consultancy function and gave the Carl Zeiss optical with on-site advice guaranteed a high level of buy-in stable performance, faster response to the problem of notifications as well as more industry orientation of the company. Integration of inter-organizational information systems Integration of information systems (IS) refers to the process of instance interconnecting or unifying of previously separated information systems or elements into a functioning unified whole. IS integration in inter-organization is distinguished either by the intensity of integration or flexibility of integration. The depth of integration describes the extent and strength of IS inter-organizational integration; this is a measure to assess the degree to which objectives of integration achieved. Integration intensity can be further specified using two criteria that is scope and type of integration. The range of integration denotes the number of IS elements integrated with corresponding elements of other IS, these items may either be categorized in the following six different dimension. (Spieth, Schneckenberg and Ricart, 2014). It assumed that the higher the intensity of integration the better it is to achieve the objectives and vice versa. Types of integration describe how elements of IS are integrated, forms of integration are either interconnection or unification. Interconnections may subdivide into details based on the degree of automation that is either partially or wholly automated. Partly mechanical interconnection is achieved when the interactions between integration elements are executed by software while partially automated made when the workforce is required to initialize or control the communication (Woodside and LaPlaca, 2015). A fully automated interconnection compared to somewhat helps to reduce the cost to avoid redundancies and enhance productivity. The other type of interconnection is unification which refers to the process where two or more integration items are into one. Standardization leads to a higher intensity of integration compared to integration by interconnection. The flexibility of integration describes the ease with which integration solutions redesigned and new integration solutions implemented. High flexibility of integration ensures the cost to adjust the combination and switching into another alliance partner an acceptable level. Flexibility in integration can be using two distinct criteria that is; scope of standard usage and type of and compliance with standards, here standards /rules refers to the technical specification to which products must conforming order to be compatible (Simon, D., Fischbach and Schoder, 2014). The criterion scope of normal usage describes how many items are an integrated basis of standards; the greater the extent of standard usage the higher is the flexibility of integration. Types and compliance with standards facilitate redesigning, implementation or collaborating partners with other business partners (Veit et.al, 2014). Different standards include; standard dissemination which is on whether the standard is widely accepted, standard specification addresses the scope of regulations that specify the application of a standard and standard compatibility which describes whether a standard is compatible with other or same versions or same criteria. References Galliers, R. D., Leidner, D. E. (2014).Strategic information management: challenges and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge. Demil, B., Lecocq, X., Ricart, J. E., Zott, C. (2015). 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