SYMANTEC'S ERP TURMOIL

SYMANTEC

A leading software vendor specialized in Security and Information Management

Well known for Norton brand of security products

Operates in more than 40 countries and consist over 17500 employees. In 2005, the company made its largest acquisition to date, acquiring Veritas Software for approx. $13.5 billion

Use of Common Software

After acquisition, it began an ERP rollout known as Project Oasis. Its goal was to create a single ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system

Both companies were using Oracle E-Business suit 11d prior to the merger. Which seemed a good thing for SYMANTEC’s business operation

Requirement & Benefits

Combined company’s enterprise system was needed to combine Symantec and Veritas data from key business processes

A common enterprise system would also reduce the cost of maintaining Symantec’s IT infrastructure and licensing fees for the enterprise software.

Steps Taken by Symantec

Company opted to upgrade to oracle’s E-Business suite on Sun Solaris Server

They used oracle fusion middleware portal on the front end ,providing a single point for all of partners and customers

Problem with New System

The initial reaction of launching the new system was unquestionably negative

Users were unhappy with this new system Customers began calling Symantec’s

support team for solution in record numbers ,but the company was unprepared to meet the increased demand for customer support

Waiting time ballooned from an average of 2 min. to an average of 25 min. for a call

Problem Continued

Once customer reached a Symantec employee they had to spend 20 more min. troubleshooting the problems and they were often told that there was nothing that could be done

Customers were also unhappy with Symantec’s changes to its stock-keeping unit product system

Decision Backfired

Symantec tried to improve the systems by single set of codes, But-

Some small distributors and partners didn’t update their system to handle new SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) system

Extended the date but the overhaul still represented an annoyance for many customers

Changes to software licensing were another irritating thing to customer

Kept couple of weeks in getting license Not coordinated with rest of the project ‘OASIS’ Difficulty in buying Symantec’s products via

companies like Ingram Micro Partners were unhappy with time consuming processes

Result of Missteps

Symantec was in danger to loose many loyal customers

Company’s shortsightedness in implementing project ‘OASIS’

Earnings were less than expected Needed to cut $200 million in annual

costs Top management had to confess their

mistakes

Project Nero

For the purpose of undoing mistakes, the company immediately came up with Project Nero. The goal was to recapture the loyalty of customers who got annoyed after OASIS. This was planned to done by-

Reaching to those customers Fixing the problems with their information

systems to improve response time and streamline operations

Implementation

Company added 150 customer representatives to handle increased volumes of calls reduce wait times increase customer satisfaction Company’s executives travelled the country

for improving relations with angered customers and partners

Symantec also used Net promoter technology to measure and increase customer loyalty

Result

Symantec’s customer satisfaction levels which were extremely low after OASIS, improved after Nero project

Symantec reported that it now enjoys satisfaction level at par with the rest of the industry and averted a potential danger, though they never revealed the result of net promoters survey and their total damage

Questions

Q1. What concepts in this chapter are illustrated in this case?

Q2. What Management, Organization, and Technology factors were responsible for Symantec’s difficulties in overhauling its ERP systems?

Q3. Was Symantec’s response to the problem adequate? Explain your reasoning

Q4. What would you have done differently to prevent the implementation problems that arose at Symantec?

Q5. If you were a partner or customer of Symantec, would you have switched vendors in response to the ERP overhaul issues? Why or why not?

Conclusion

Symantec’s ERP Turmoil shows that even the most careful planning and well designed system can quickly go down if customers are unable to understand or use the information system properly

Thanks For Your Time