Factors affecting the management on the application of enterprise resource planning system. A case of national cereals and produce board in Kenya.

ABSTRACT

The title of the study is Factors Affecting the management on the Application of ERP system. A case of National Cereals and Produce Board in Kenya.ERP system is an integrated system that handles the majority of system requirements in all function units of an enterprise. The benefits that accrue as a result of using ERP system are sharing of data in a centralized location, improved customer service and competitive advantage through increased market share.Organisations in Kenya using ERP systems are in sectors like banks, energy and water.NCPB is a parastatal under Ministry of Agriculture formed under an act of parliament of 1985 whose mandate is to buy, store and market cereals.ERP is used in NCPB to do selling transport, budget, purchase, Cashbook, debt and revenue collection. The specific objectives were to determine how effective inventory management influences application of ERP system, to find out how sales management influences application of ERP system and to determine to what extent to which distribution management affect application of ERP system in NCPB. The study adopted a descriptive research design which is a method of collecting information by interviewing or administering questionnaires to a sample. The study targeted a population of 511 employees of National Cereals and Produce Board all from 5 Regional Offices namely Nairobi,Kisumu,Nakuru,Eldoret,Mombasa.A stratified random sampling method was used to represent the population and to pick a sample of 51 respondents which was 10% of the target population of 511 employees who were provided with questionnaires. Validity is the degree to which results obtained from analysis of data actually represents the phenomenon under study. For validity reasons the questionnaire was tested on some staff who were not included in the final study. Reliability is a measure of the degree to which research instruments gives consistent results after repeated trials. To confirm reliability, instruments were pretested in a small sample which was used in the final survey and a repeat is done again soon. Data analysis was done through quantitative and qualitative techniques. Quantitative technique was applied because the nature of data to be collected was descriptive thus statistics in application here includes measures of central tendency like mean and measures of dispersion like standard deviation. The qualitative technique was used because some data in questionnaire is in narrative form thus prose format was used to analyze and present the results. The study findings were presented by use of tables and charts. The study will benefit policy makers like NCPB, Government and researchers. The findings concluded that with effective inventory management, there is a need to have optimum inventory level to reduce operating cost and through sales management, NCPB get more information to improve on service delivery by doing customer/employee survey. Finally with distribution management, there is accurate information on logistics thus NCPB was able to make quick decision on stock availability and transfers.