Volume 8
Volume 8, Number 49 |
July 13, 2010 |
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Jennifer Kreie
Carlo A. Mora-Monge
James Shannon
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Abstract: In the last decade one of the largest IT investments has unarguably been Enterprise Systems (ES). Evidence suggests that this trend will likely continue. In 2006 for example, the ES market had a revenue growth of over 14%--more than $28 billion. Despite the continued interest from organizations with regards to ES, many are still reluctant to adopt it. On top of the list reasons is the fact that many companies who implemented ES systems have not gained strategic competitive advantages and have only seen partial integration of transactional data. Research has attempted to explain the limited benefits achieved by some companies and one explanation is a gap between users' skills and achieving ES benefits. ES users need to be properly trained in both technical aspects of ES and integrated business processes. To close this gap, some business schools have undergone curriculum changes to include skills critical for ESs: technical skills, statistical and analytic skills, knowledge of data, knowledge of the business, and communication/partnering skills. This paper describes the efforts of a business school located in the southwest of the US to develop a five-year plan for integrating ES content into courses to help students build the five key skills for today's businesses using ES. This paper presents the five-year plan, gives detailed information about a new course, outlines the content of an ES minor, and suggests possible future curricula development.
Keywords: enterprise systems, enterprise resource planning, business curriculum, information systems curriculum
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Recommended Citation: Kreie, Mora-Monge, and Shannon (2010). Going From Data to Decisions: Preparing Students to Use Enterprise Systems. Information Systems Education Journal, 8 (49). http://isedj.org/8/49/. ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2009: §3513. ISSN: 1542-7382.)