20231002235918PM-1188372297-12553442-1738713551_CLT311062

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Case study This case study is used in Questions 1, 2 and 3. It consists of three successive reports as news developed on the same topic, over a period of a few months. Edinburgh University: serious problems caused by implementation of new HR and finance system Report 1: University of Edinburgh staff paid late due to Oracle ERP troubles (3 Nov 2022) Scotland's University of Edinburgh has paid staff and suppliers late owing to the troubled implementation of a new Oracle-based HR and finance system. Professors and postgraduate researchers at the 400-year-old institution told local media that their wage pack had been delayed by two to three weeks. The Edinburgh Evening News also reported that suppliers have stopped providing services to the university because invoices had not been paid. At least one dated back to 2018. The university implemented a new centralised HR, payroll and finance system it called ‘People and money’ in June. The news outlet reported concerns of staff and graduate students struggling to pay their bills and rent because of the delay. In June 2019, Oracle announced the university was moving to Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle HCM Cloud, both applications based on the Oracle Cloud-based Fusion platform. Later that summer, integration partner Inoapps said it had won the deal to support the project. In January 2021, it was reported that the first stage of the project had gone live with finance and HR modules to follow. A University of Edinburgh spokesperson refused to deny the new system was based on Oracle Fusion and that Inoapps supported the project. In a statement, the spokesperson said: ‘The University recently implemented a new finance system, which required us to interrupt financial processing for a period over the summer to allow us to test the system and transfer huge volumes of data. We apologise to any of our suppliers, students or staff who are experiencing a delay in payment’. ‘We have increased the number of people in our finance team who are working tirelessly to process the increased volume of outstanding invoices. The University prides itself in fostering good relationships with suppliers, and we are doing our best to ensure all payments are processed as quickly as possible’. ‘We are also acutely aware of the impact that this is having on some of our staff and students, and have apologised for the disruption. We will continue to communicate with our community to ensure they are aware of the work that is being undertaken to address their issues, and how we are prioritising payments’. The spokesperson added that a technical error, unrelated to the university's systems, caused a delay in stipend payments for some PhD students last week. According to a Freedom of Information request, Edinburgh University was using Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) 12.1.3 for HR, payroll and self-service as of December 2014. The most recent upgrade of this system had taken place in November 2013. ERP trouble seems to stalk Edinburgh. The city council was forced to abandon a Unit4 project – a decision which led to a supplier court battle – and opted instead to extend the life of its Oracle EBS system.

Earlier this year, universities across Scotland clubbed together to soften up the market in preparation for an enterprise software procurement estimated to be worth £42m. Oracle refused to comment and Ioapps has not responded to a request to comment. Source: Clark, L. (2022), ‘University of Edinburgh staff paid late due to Oracle ERP troubles’, The Register . 3 November. Available at: https://www.theregister.com/ 2022/ 11/ 03/ oracle_erp_edinburgh_university/ Report 2: University orders investigation into Oracle finance disaster (23 Nov 2022) The University of Edinburgh subsequently launched a review into its disastrous go-live of an Oracle finance system as it admitted suppliers have walked away over stalled payments. In an email seen by The Register, principal Professor Peter Mathieson told staff and students that the leadership team was ‘acutely aware that our University is facing major disruption caused by the implementation of our new finance services underpinned by the People and Money system’. ‘We have listened to how this is affecting our staff, students, suppliers and partners and we are sincerely sorry for the unacceptable position this has put people in’, he said. One employee told The Register staff were being forced to buy their own stationery and pay for their own taxis. ‘We continue to do all we can to ensure these problems will not recur in the future. We have committed to undertaking an external review to highlight what lessons we can learn and help to inform further improvements’. The principal also promised to address late payments to staff and students. He said the university had taken extra measures to ensure stipends to students were made in November, December and beyond ‘correctly and on time’. He also said the university was making a one-off payment of £300 to anyone affected by a late stipend payment in September or October 2022. Meanwhile, suppliers have stopped providing goods and services to the University, one employee told The Register. Staff were being forced to buy their own stationery and pay for their own taxis because the companies with formal agreements had stopped supplying the institution because of late or failed payments. Meanwhile, in response to criticism from the University's Senate, a representative body made up of students and academics, the institution said it would extend the support provided by implementation partner Inoapps and ‘keep this under review, with a focus on tackling remaining finance system defects’. It said it had extended support from finance teams and technology teams including ‘programme team, change team and business analysis support’. Oracle ‘accelerated customer support’ had also been extended, it said. The university has been asked to comment. In an earlier response, a spokesperson said the university apologised to any students, staff or suppliers who are experiencing a delay in payment. Oracle and Inoapps have so far declined the opportunity to comment. According to a Freedom of Information request, Edinburgh University was using Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) 12.1.3 for HR, payroll and self-service as of December 2014. The most recent upgrade of this system had taken place in November 2013.

Source: Clark, L. (2022), ‘University orders investigation into Oracle finance disaster’, The Register , 23 November. Available at: https://www.theregister.com/ 2022/ 11/ 23/ edinburgh_university_oracle_investigation/ Report 3: Edinburgh Uni finds extra £8M for vendors after troubled ERP go-live (21 March 2023) Vendors working on an Edinburgh University ERP project have been awarded around £8 million in additional fees following a troubled implementation which led to delays in paying staff and suppliers. The institution has confirmed implementation partner Inoapps and software company Oracle will see the price of their contract rise from £25.4 million to £33.5 million, owing to changes in requirements and additional work orders by the customer. The contract value had initially been erroneously stated as £20.5 million. A new procurement notice published late last week said the university had ‘undertaken a number of contract modifications with Inoapps’ to ‘allow for changes in requirements and additional work to be delivered under the existing contract’. ‘These modifications were necessary and largely a result of additional requirements and internal requirements changes’, it said. In the procurement notice, the university said it was unable to consider alternative suppliers to Inoapps because ‘another contractor would not have access to the Inoapps proprietary methodology for design and implementation; and disclosure of the methodology or technical products from that approach to a third party would be a breach of confidentiality’. ‘As such a change of contractor cannot be made for these technical reasons’, the notice said. The contract was signed in 2019 for an initial five-year period, with the option to extend four times for a period of three years. In June 2019, Oracle announced the university was moving to Oracle ERP Cloud and Oracle HCM Cloud, both applications based on the Oracle Cloud-based Fusion platform. Later that summer, integration partner Inoapps said it had won the deal to support the project. In January 2021, it was reported that the project's first stage had gone live, with finance and HR modules to follow. Source: Clark, L. (2023), ‘Edinburgh Uni finds extra £8M for vendors after troubled ERP go-live’. The Register , 21 March. Available at: https://www.theregister.com/ 2023/ 03/ 21/ edinburgh_uni_finds_extra_8m/ Question 1 (30 marks) This question tests your understanding of Block 1 Part 1, plus some diagrams taught in Block 1 Part 2 and is based upon the case study.  a. Draw a spray diagram or rich picture that captures the situation described in the case study. Explain your rationale for the way you have drawn this diagram, for the elements you have included and excluded, and describe the insights you have gained about the system from drawing this diagram. You should write no more 100 words for part (a) in addition to including a rich picture or spray diagram (but not both). (10 marks)

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 b. Choose a significant event described by the case study which you wish to explore further, and draw a multiple cause diagram showing the causes of that event. Explain your rationale for the way you have drawn your diagram, for the elements you have included and excluded, and describe the insights you have gained about the system from drawing this diagram You should write no more 100 words for part (b) in addition to including a diagram. (10 marks)  c. Identify five key stakeholders described in the case study, describing each one and the nature of their interest in this IT system. Your answer should make use of one of the approaches to stakeholder identification in Section 1.5.1 of Block 1: the list on p.52 (introduced with ‘a good starting point is to ask’), Dix’s four classes of stakeholders (p.54), or the power/interest grid (p.54–5). You should write no more than 250 words for part (c). (10 marks) Question 2 (30 marks) This question tests your understanding of Block 1 Part 2, and is based upon the case study.  a. Identify a significant failure in the situation described in the case study. You should select a failure that will allow sufficient scope for modelling in parts (b) and (c). Explain in one or two paragraphs: o why you consider it to be a failure o why you consider it to be significant enough to justify further analysis o who, in the situation, would and would not have agreed that it was a failure, and why they would hold this view. You should write no more than 200 words for part (a). (8 marks)  b. State a sociotechnical system you can perceive in the situation described in the case study that you would expect to be useful to you in a study using the Systems Failures Approach. Draw a systems map of it in its environment, based solely on the information contained in the case study. Take care to select a system for which the case study provides sufficient detail for your model. Explain your rationale for the way you have drawn your map, for the elements you have included and excluded, and describe the insights you have gained about the system from drawing the map.

(Note that you do not need to justify your choice of system, or explain why it is a sociotechnical system.) You should write no more than 100 words for part (b), in addition to including a diagram. (10 marks)  c. Draw a diagram of the system you mapped in part (b), in the style of the Formal Systems Model similar to Figure 1, to include only those sociotechnical aspects which have been evidenced in the case study. Explain your rationale for the way you have drawn your diagram, for the elements included and excluded, and describe the insights you have gained about the system from drawing the diagram and critically comparing it with the ideal version. You should write no more than 150 words for part (c), in addition to including a diagram. (12 marks)

Question 3 (20 marks) This question tests your understanding of Block 1 Part 3, and is based upon the case study. Apply each of the following concepts to analyse the systems described in the case study:  a. complexity  b. emergence  c. adaptation

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 d.co-evolution. For each concept write a paragraph of explanation setting out the insight you have gained by applying the concept to the case study’s systems. In your answer you should explain, with justification, if the systems in the case study exhibit these concepts. Where appropriate, you should make explicit reference to any principles which bear directly on the prospect for building successful IT systems as described in Block 1 Part 3. You should write no more than 500 words in total for the whole of Question 3. Question 4 (20 marks) This question tests your understanding of Block 1 Part 4.  a. Carry out a personal contextual analysis using the STEEPLE analysis template and Personal analysis template provided in Block 1 Part 4 to help you. o Identify two opportunities and two threats as a result of a STEEPLE analysis related to your own specific personal, academic or career-related goals and aspirations. o Explain why the factors identified present opportunities and pose threats. Paste your completed templates into your solution document. (10 marks)  b. Using the Personal SWOT analysis template , identify your personal strengths and weaknesses in relation to the opportunities and threats that you identified in part (a). Paste your completed template into your solution document. (5 marks)  c. Evaluate the threats, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses that you found in SWOT analysis in part (b), and produce a brief action plan using the Action plan template provided to demonstrate how you are planning to achieve one of the the goals that you analysed in part (a). Paste your completed template into your solution document. (5 marks) You should write no more than 500 words for the whole of Question 4 (including text you write to fill in the templates, but excluding the words already populated in the templates before you started).

20231002235918PM-1188372297-12553442-1738713551_CLT311062

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