پیاده سازی سیستم های ERP مد در چین : مطالعه موردی از نام تجاری (برند)مد، بررسی و چالش های آینده

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been widely applied in the fashion industry. An ERP system is a cross-functional system which integrates various units in the company with an attempt to shorten processing time, increase responsiveness, and achieve competitive advantages. Among all the modules popularly included in an ERP system, there is a critical one called the order-to-cash (OTC) module. In this paper, Levi Strauss & Co. in China-Hong Kong (LSCO-CHK) is selected as the target case company. Via semi-structured interviews and discussions with some staff members of the company, we examine the implementation of OTC module in LSCO-CHK's ERP system. The benefits and the problems encountered during the system development process are examined. Based on the case study results, and the extensive literature review, we conclude that whether implementing fashion ERP systems in China can successfully enhance production and operations management relies on many measures which include (i) understanding the “human mindset” of Chinese society, (ii) showing full respect to the staff members during the implementation process, (iii) emphasizing the importance of guanxi with both internal staff members and external business partners, (iv) providing attractive tangible and intangible incentives to participants. We argue that if the above measures are well-taken, implementing technological information systems solutions in China can be more successful than the ones in the western countries because of the Chinese cultural merit which treasures “cooperation” when Chinese people feel respected. Finally, future challenges and research opportunities on implementing fashion ERP systems in China are explored.

Speed to market is one of the most important competitive advantages in nowadays' fashion retail market (Chen et al., 2010 and Choi, 2012). As the fashion cycle is short (which leads to a more volatile marketplace) and fashion icons are less predictable (Gillooly, 1998), both speed and flexibility are required to satisfy customers who expect increasingly good value and more fashion content (Yang et al., 2011). In order to enhance the responsiveness of the whole supply chain, time management and the use of technology become crucial topics in the industry (Al-Mashari and Zairi, 2000, Bertolini et al., 2004 and Choi et al., 2006). The concept of quick response (QR) was developed in the 1980s as a tool of improving response time in the textile production pipeline (Gargeya and Brady, 2005 and Choi and Sethi, 2010 In general, QR refers to the strategy that aims at improving the response time from the selection of a garment by a retailer to its replenishment by a manufacturer. Many fashion retailers, such as Zara, New Look and George at ASDA, have developed a variety of QR strategies that increase their responsiveness to the volatile market (Gillooly, 1998). This trend has also spread to China and a lot of brands in China, such as Vancl (Wei and Zhou, 2011), are also adopting quick response in their fast fashion concept. Responsiveness requires information sharing among all members across the supply chain and thus how to facilitate channel coordination is a major problem to address (Li et al., 2008c, Gao et al., 2008, Xu et al., 2011, Xu et al., 2008a and Xu et al., 2008b). Enterprise resource planning (ERP) system solution has been employed to deal with this issue by re-engineering the supply chain within and beyond an organization (Li and Zhao, 2006, Li et al., 2001, Aubert et al., 2012, Fryling, 2010, Johansson and Newman, 2010, Koch and Mitlohner, 2010, Li, 2012, Xu, 2007 and Xu, 2011). ERP platform is specifically necessary in the fashion industry. This is because the fashion industry and its supply chains face a demand-driven market and it becomes upmost important to obtain the latest market information and share the information among the channel members (Fernie, 1994). However, poor ERP implementation frequently occurs owing to: (1) complex implementation as it requires cross-module integration; and (2) culture differences and lack of communication between the organization and end-users. As a result, the cost to operate and maintain an ERP system is substantial (Soh et al., 2000 and Umble et al., 2003). A considerable amount of literature works have been devoted to ERP implementation (Li et al., 2008a, Li et al., 2008b, Niu et al., 2011, Olson and Staley, 2012, Qi et al., 2006 and Yin and Xie, 2011). Undoubtedly, since China is the “world factory” for the fashion industry and ERP systems are crucial for modern production and operations management in fashion, studying fashion related ERP systems for China scenario is a very important topic. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no prior work which explicitly examines the fashion ERP system in the context of China. As a result, this paper contributes to the literature by being a pioneering discussion paper which aims to explore the reasons and critical success factors of ERP implementation specifically in China and its impacts to a fashion enterprise's efficiency in production and operations management. Specifically, we aim at answering the following five research questions: (1)How has the literature advanced regarding the implementation and applications of fashion ERP systems in China? (2)What are the possible issues that a fashion company may encounter during ERP system implementation in China? (3) What are the factors that may lead to successful ERP system implementation for a fashion company in China? (4) What are the strategies that can be taken by a fashion company to improve its production and operations management in China via ERP systems? (5) What are the challenges and future research directions for fashion ERP system implementation in China? After addressing the above five questions, we strive to derive some insights on why China's manufacturing sector has been successful and growing at a much faster speed than many places in the world such as the US. Owing to data availability and the prominence of the company, we take Levi Strauss & Co. (LSCO) at China-Hong Kong (LSCO-CHK) as our case study target in this paper. Specifically, we first examine the closely related literature and identify pertinent issues such as the critical success factors (CSFs) and implementation challenges on ERP system. We then proceed to conduct a detailed investigation about the recent implementation of the order-to-cash (OTC) module in LSCO-CHK. We are interested in the OTC module as it concerns the various important processes involved in production and operations management from order placing/ replenishment to delivery, and payment. All these processes are critical to the responsiveness of a fashion retailer and they require prompt and close communication between the fashion retailer and its suppliers. With the case study, this paper aims at illustrating the various factors to which a fashion retailer should pay special attention when adopting the module for its success in China. Finally, by combining our findings from LSCO-CHK and the literature, we discuss the CSFs for and the challenges on ERP system implementation for fashion enterprises in China, and explore future research opportunities. Fig. 1 depicts the approach adopted in this paper.

Through the study of the LSCO-CHK case and the reviewed literature, we have demonstrated how ERP system can improve business performance and how new system adoption brings different impacts to the company operating in China. Specific critical successful factors for the case in China are also summarized. As a remark, although there are some concerns from the employees in LSCO regarding the ERP system implementation, the use of information technology in the marketplace and the improvement of supply chain management are the dominant trend. Implementation of a new system requires commitments from the staff at all levels and it is a long-run project, companies should carefully carry out the implementation plan and ensure that the new system can be operated by the users smoothly. In turn, the proper way of the use of information system would bring numerous benefits to the company. To conclude this paper, we provide concise answers to the five core research questions we raised in Section 1. (1)The literature advancement on the implementation and applications of fashion ERP systems in China: From the reviewed literature, we notice that the fashion ERP systems developments and deployments in China have yielded the following benefits: (i) Information availability, (ii) faster processing, (iii) uniform organization, (iv) quicker customer responsiveness, and (v) better cash flow management. From the case study on LSCO, we observe that these benefits are all related to the intended objectives in the company's ERP system project (especially the OTC module), and LSCO has partially fulfilled them. In terms of the success factors, the literature has indicated that: (i) organization culture and policies, (ii) language and communication, (iii) legal and political issues, (iv) guanxi, (v) management commitment, (vi) good incentive, and (vii) technical support are all critical. (2)The possible issues that a fashion company may encounter during ERP system implementation in China: From the LSCO case, we reveal that the possible issues and challenges a fashion company will face in its ERP system implementation in China are: (i) File compatibility problem, (ii) failure in having seamless information sharing of all teams, and (iii) problem with stock replenishment. To a large extent, these challenges come from insufficient technical support and infrastructure prior to implementation (see Li et al., 2008b for many insightful discussions). (3) The factors that may lead to successful ERP system implementation for a fashion company in China: As shown in the LSCO case, we reveal that understanding the organization culture and policies, establishing proper guanxi, providing appropriate and good incentive, and offering sufficient technical support are all the critical success factors for a fashion company's ERP system implementation in China. (4) The strategies that can be taken by a fashion company to improve its production and operations management in China via ERP systems: As reflected by the LSCO case, we understand that for a fashion company to enhance its operations in China via employing ERP system, it has to pay full attention to a few areas, namely: (i) Both the company senior management and the staff members have to adopt a new “system” mindset and fine-tune the company's norms, (ii) the company must offer good incentive (linked closely with the use of ERP system) to the staff members so that they will faithfully use the new system to enhance company's business operations, (iii) the scope of the ERP system project should be confined and roll-out in transition, and (iv) total commitment from both senior management and operational staff members. (5) For the challenges and future research directions for fashion ERP system implementation in China: Based on this case discussion and the findings of the literature, the following challenges and future research opportunities are identified. a. How ERP system influences the financial and cash flow management in fashion enterprises in China? As reviewed in Section 2, financial and cash flow management is an essentially important part of modern ERP system for fashion enterprises in China. This issue is particularly important because the Chinese financial system is not totally free (the Chinese financial market is not a completely free market). As a result, cash flow management is crucial for the success and survival of the fashion companies operating in China. Thus, there is a genuine need to examine further how ERP system would influence the financial and cash flow management in fashion enterprises especially in China. Many insights can be generated. b. Exploring how firm size and resources of fashion enterprises affect the ERP system implementation in China It is known that ERP system implementation requires substantial investment. This is especially a significant issue for fashion companies because most of them (excluding the luxury fashion brands) are not as wealthy as financial banks or the consumer electronics brands. As a result, how the firm size and available resources affect ERP system implementation for fashion enterprises in China is an interesting and important topic. Expectedly, innovative measures such as co-implementation and development on ERP systems of horizontal small-to-medium sized firms could be an alternative if resources of individual firms are limited. c. Investigating how ERP system implementation enhances supply chain strategic alliance measures in the fashion industry in China In fashion supply chains, many kinds of strategic alliance measures can be found. For example, the renowned vendor-managed-inventory (VMI) scheme is successfully established between the American buyer JC Penney and the Chinese manufacturer TAL. Similar schemes can be observed in many other fashion brands. Expectedly, the success of these strategic alliance schemes would relate to the ERP system implementation. It is thus natural and important to study how the two are related. d. The use of business intelligence in Chinese fashion ERP system ERP system enhances the integration of operations and business processes both internally and externally. There are hence more opportunities to adopt a higher level of technologies in improving business decision making. Recently, the use of artificial intelligence methods is popularly studied in the literature under the scope of business intelligence and business analytics (Laudon and Laudon, 2012). As a result, how the Chinese fashion ERP system can be supported by these business intelligence applications is an interesting area for further examination. Moreover, since many modern fashion business practices, such as mass customization, require very efficient supply chain process control and accurate forecasting, the ERP system which equips with these business intelligence tools will definitely help a lot for the success of these modern business models in fashion. e. Studying whether the censoring issue of network affects the performance of ERP system in China In China, the internet is under the government's censoring. It affects every walk of life and also includes fashion enterprises. One China specific research issue hence arises: How this kind of information censoring affects the development and operations of ERP system for fashion enterprises in China. Expectedly, this research extension will identify whether ERP system has its natural limitation in China owing to the information censoring issue. As a consequence, some areas of potential improvement specific to fashion enterprises operations related to the use of ERP system in China can be revealed. As a remark, it is well-noted that some China's manufacturing sectors, including the fashion and apparel sector, have been very successful and growing at a much faster speed than many places in the world such as the US. We argue that in terms of the fashion ERP system implementation, a fashion company can enjoy a bigger success in China than other places if: (i) it understands the importance of respecting the “human mindset” of Chinese society and shows full respect to the staff members during the implementation process, (ii) it emphasizes the importance of guanxi with both internal staff members and external business partners, (iii) it provides attractive incentives, both tangible (such as cash) and intangible (such as respect and recognition) to the participants. Our analysis indicates that if the above measures are well-taken, implementing technological information systems solutions in China can be more successful than the ones in the western countries because of the Chinese cultural merit treasuring “cooperation” when Chinese people feel respected. We hence argue that companies who wish to increase the chance of success in implementing technological solutions to enhance production and operations management in China must take these specific measures into considerations.