ESSU Meeting Minutes & Active Memberships
ERP Program Speaker Series Featuring Stryker - 10/10/2016
October 10, 2016
This meeting started at 6:03 p.m. and took place in the Seidman Forum. For the second ERP Speaker Series during this school year, we were fortunate to have Jim Stark from Stryker come and give a presentation. Jim is a VP of Master Data Governance.
Jim first gave an overview of Stryker which is a company that he has been a part of for over 28 years. Stryker is a medical technology company that is ranked number 287 out of the Fortune 500 companies. They have about 27,000 employees worldwide. Jim was most proud that Stryker has had 36 straight years of growth. Jim went through some of the history at Stryker by naming some of its more famous and innovative products. Stryker is a company that is committed to innovation. Jim then talked about some of Stryker’s volunteering efforts including Operational Smile which is something he is proud about. The Accelerate ERP Program, as Jim explained, is a company-wide strategic initiative to have all the business functions on one instance of SAP. Jim pointed out that Stryker is currently dealing with thousands of systems and a few dozen different ERPs. Jim said “complexity is not a competitive advantage.” He mentioned Accelerate’s scope and detailed some of its modules. Stryker offers a 12-week internship, according to Jim, and certain internships are offered a several different locations. During a Q&A, Jim answered several questions on topics like the traits of an IT leader which is responded by saying that a leader should be able to identify where are the business problems and know how to solve them. Another question was challenges he faces and Jim mentioned to the fact that retiring legacy systems is difficult and it is important to have change management be in place. The presentation ended at 7:10 p.m. Students were able to network with Jim afterwards.
It was a very successful turnout for this event and students got to hear a great presentation from Jim who is very enthusiastic about ERP and the business process. Students should visit https://careers.stryker.com/ to inquire for any open positions.
Afterwards, the second ESSU Board meeting of the school year was held in the same location starting at 7:40 p.m. The major topic discussed was about the ESSU Annual Plan that needs to be prepared and ready for a review. The Annual Plan is about the 2016-2017 process and it shall be no more than 3 pages. Lizzy will work on an Operational Budget and a Projected Budget which will consist things like a new banner, firm visits, promotion material, and van costs for example. Emily will write a short paragraph on the transitioning steps during the officer transition meeting. We also brainstormed ideas for a faculty approved fundraising event. Jacob gave an update on the video he is working on for ESSU promotions. The meeting concluded at 8:00 p.m.