IT has change our way of living and doing business. ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning, is most popular and very good software that make us easy to use our different business module. And now this is the time that without ERP Software you cannot be able to compete any leading business. It means if you want be a successful businessman or achieve high position in your field ERP system is necessary. In this short discussion I will try to give you some information about ERP and benefit of ERP.
Now first question is arise in your mind is: What is ERP – ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP definition refers to both ERP software and business strategies that implement ERP systems. ERP utilizes various ERP software applications to improve the performance of organizations for 1) resource planning, 2) management control and 3) operational control. ERP system contains different software module of different department – from product planning, parts purchasing, inventory control, and product distribution, to order tracking. Most ERP software systems include application modules to support business activities – finance, accounting and HR.
ERP Systems – ERP is too more than a piece of computer software. An ERP System includes Software, Business Process parts, Users and Hardware that run the ERP Software. An ERP is combination of hardware and software parts. Those components interact together to achieve a same goal – streamline and improve organizations’ business processes.
Past of ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is the evolution of Manufacturing Requirements Planning (MRP) II in 1980s, while MRP is the evolution of Inventory Management & Control conceived in 1960s. ERP has expanded from coordination of manufacturing processes to the integration of enterprise-wide backend processes. In terms of technology, ERP has evolved from legacy implementation to more flexible tiered client-server architecture.
Benefits of ERP – ERP software integrate business processes across different departments onto a single enterprise-wide information system. The main benefit of ERP are that improve co ordination of different department of business and with the help of it business will increase fluently and you can get data as fast as possible. The implementations of ERP systems help facilitate daily management as well. ERP software systems are originally and ambitiously designed to support resource planning portion of strategic planning. In reality, resource planning has been the weakest link in ERP practice due to the complexity of strategic planning and lack of adequate integration of ERP with Decision Support Systems (DSS).
ERP Failures – We could not conclude our brief guide to ERP without mentioning ERP failures. The failures of multi-million dollar ERP projects are reported once in a while even after 20 years of ERP implementation. We have identified the four components of an ERP System – 1) ERP software, 2) Business Processes that ERP software supports, 3) Users of ERP systems, and 4) Hardware and Operating Systems that run ERP applications. The failures in one or more of those four components could cause the failure of an ERP project.