Understanding Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems

ERP System

The ERP software works on the designing to be used by the larger business and requires a proper dedicated team for the customisation and the analysis of the data. This is mainly to work on the customisation of the specific business industry. ERP is important for the management of core business process with the real-time technology. Here, the business activities include the planning of the product, their purchase, the production and the manufacturing with proper delivery of the services (Leon, 2014). With this, there is a category of the business management with the suite of integrated applications that the organisation could use for management and interpretation of data. The ERP includes the track of the business resources with the cash, raw materials and the production capacity. Here, the applications are set to make up the system with the information flow between the business functions and managing the connections to the other stakeholders as well.

Here, the ERP system focus on the different organisational systems with the facilitation of error free transactions and the productions. It will help in enhancing the efficiency of the organisation and working over the running on the different computer hardware and the network configurations (Pai et al., 2014). The focus is mainly on the automation of the back-office functions that does not affect the customers and the public. Here, there is a need to deal with the customers like the e-commerce and the e-government where the integration is based on management of the resources and working over the transaction processes. The ERP is flexible with the confined system capabilities in the organisation. It helps in enabling the collaborative initiatives like the supply chain management, customer relationship management and the business intelligence. The ERP is set with the handling of accounting, maintenance and the human resource components, where the system works over the web based software and working over the resource optimisation and the transaction processing as well (Chiu et al., 2014). Here, the management is through buying, selling and handling the collaboration with the other enterprises. This is set for the supply chain management, customer relationship and the business management that is set among the business partner organisations using various e-business technologies. The developers are working on the integration of the mobile devices with the ERP system that has also allowed the ERP with the integration of the hardware, applications, networking and the supply chain. It includes the operations in the real time, where the common database is to support the applications as well. The installation of the system with the elaboration of the application and the data integration is by the IT department which includes the management accounting, budgeting, costing and the cost management. The manufacturing process and the manufacturing projects are to handle the order processing, with order to cash and handle the credit checking parts as well (Sustianment, 2014).

For the proper process of the ERP systems, there is a need to work over the customer approaches with the proper implementation of the methodologies and working over the implementation that includes:

1. The understanding through the incumbent system process where the major decision is to purchase the new system of ERP which could be sources and worked upon with process improvements. The process also includes the system implementation where the situation improves with the focus on handling the setting and defining the goals. the success of the future implementation focusses on processing and handling the data of the current system.
2. The homework and collaboration work on the clearly defined goals with the new ERP system that can achieve and define the tangible metrics. The industry verticals supply the specific software to meet the needs of the business. The business tends to send the business invitation to the tenders for listing about the questions filled in by the potential vendors (Shaul et al., 2013). The vendors seek for the development of the long-standing relationship with the customer with the ability to assist in reaching to achieve the aim with the tools and resources to deliver a successful project.
3. The controlled budgeting is based on the business needs with the real cost ERP. It works on the hardware, training, organisational change management and the development to cover for the different project members. The ERP could provide a better scope of the services with proper clarification of the data migration, modification and the attendance of contingency.
4. The resources and team include the implementation of the ERP project which require the internal project manager and the team. Here, most of the business is to work on achieving and assigning the roles to the different business process. The successful implementation is for the dedicated internal project manager to make sure that the project is on the right track with key members working over the project ownership.
5. The training and acceptance is for the understanding and working over the ERP processes where the redundant system based processes includes the adoption for the different historical process with the system restrictive reasons. The harmonising of the business and the software is to understand the process which could be mapped on the software with a proper training plan (Bansal, 2013). It includes the initial training sessions of the project team which includes the department members and the critical training with end-members who could process with the assuring of the sessions to meet the required ends.
6. The data migration is common with the response that includes the budgeting section with the business working over the volume that depends on the manual keying of the data. It works over the automation areas that have been working over stabilising the activities for the sales history. To handle the migration, there are different reporting requirements of the systems which are costly.

1. There is no proper executive sponsor for the project, where the ERP crosses the functions with the company. Hence, the program needs to work on the authority with bringing the functional changes.
2. The project is viewed to be interesting to a department only.
3. Here, there is no full-time project manager where the ERP implementations are important to work on the warrant which is minimum.
4. The hardware, software and the communication intensity are set to make the decisions where the functional requirements are important for a proper input from the departments with effectiveness and creating a sense to buy-in.
5. There is a major lack of the internal resources that is applied to the project. Along with this, there is implementation of the good amount of time and effort from the people. It includes the implementation that is important for the day to day work with properly scheduling the slip and the risks of the project failure (Hoch et al., 2013).
6. There is no major documentation of the procedures set for the implementation. Hence, the ERP tend to work over the business re-engineering. The imperative approach is to document the process with reflecting the efforts and maximising the inputs from the company resources.
7. The lack of the training procedures is set and so the companies need to enable the success with the enterprise implementation. It is important to focus on how the company team leaders are trained at the different stages with the proper delivery of the products and the processes. This includes the approaches that maps to work on the business and performing the company data.
8. The massive change from the experience where the companies are embarking about the core processes. Here, the focus is on the implementation of less re-engineering efforts with the enhancement of processes. This will help in improving the upfront analysis of the business issues as company competitiveness, long term business objectives with detailing the business function processes.

Process of ERP

The advantages of using ERP are:

A proper organisational control in the large companies works over the information, with duplicates and improved communication in the internal and external manner. Here, the profitability analysis could easily be carried out to work over the costs which is higher, and the sales are more as well (Hunton et al., 2015). The improved decision-making process in the company is to react and make a proper use of time. A complete visibility works over the implementation in the departments of the organisation, with automatic workflow that is from one department to other. This is to make sure of the interpersonal activities that are tracked. The unified and the single reporting is to analyse about the statistics with the real-time functions. Here, the ERP works over the departments, with certain ERP to provide the business intelligence functions. They give a complete overall insight about the business process to identify the problems and take hold of the advanced e-commerce integration which could handle the web based tracking as well. There are different modules in the ERP systems like the finance, accounts and the human resource management, with the modular software system that is important for implementing of different designs. It also enables the centralised storage and the backup of the enterprise data as well. It is easy to track the orders, inventory and the sales forecasting which are related to the globally dispersed enterprise companies.

The disadvantages of the same are:

The higher cost of implementation and the high initial investments works over the hardware adaptation. It is also important to work and train the employees so that the system could work efficiently (Seethamraju, 2015). The integration is with the other applications, where there is inflexibility. With this, the customisation, and the cost savings are not for the integration of the ERP system with the business process. Here, there are major issues related to the participation of the users where there is a need of the successful implementation of ERP projects. This could include the other indirect costs that are set due to the ERP implementation. Here, the migration of the data to the new ERP systems is found to be difficult and worked on to achieve the integration with the other stand-alone software systems. This is mainly to achieve and work on the decentralised organisations with disparate business process and the systems. As per the evaluation the implementation is important for the single vendor lock-in for the upgrades, customisations where the companies are working over the discretion and not negotiating effectively for the services. Hence, for this, it is important to work on the cost savings and the payback where the participation of the users is also important which could lead to the successful implementation of ERP projects. Here, there are user training and the simple user interface which are found to be critical as well.

Conclusion

ERP has its positives and negatives which is based on the industry based practices. It is important to focus on the alignment of the IT systems with the reconciliation of the feature gaps as well. The ERP works over the maintenance of costs, customisation and configuration where the effects are based on upgrading to new software (Chang et al., 2015). Here, ERP covers the business functions with the focus on understanding the transformation of the business. This will help in handling the inventory and the order management, accounting and the human resources. The integration of the software for the different functions into a complete system is to streamline the processes and the information in the organisation. This works with the degree of synchronised reporting and automation rather than forcing the employees to maintain the separate set of databases and the spreadsheets which are merged for the generation of reports.

References

Bansal, V. (2013). Enterprise Resource Planning. Pearson Education India.

Chang, B., Kuo, C., Wu, C. H., & Tzeng, G. H. (2015). Using Fuzzy Analytic Network Process to assess the risks in enterprise resource planning system implementation. Applied Soft Computing, 28, 196-207.

Chiu, Y. H., Claybaugh, C. C., Lea, B. R., & Yu, W. B. (2014). Enterprise resource planning.

Hoch, J. E., & Dulebohn, J. H. (2013). Shared leadership in enterprise resource planning and human resource management system implementation. Human Resource Management Review, 23(1), 114-125.

Hunton, J. E., Wright, A. M., & Wright, S. (2015). Retraction: Are Financial Auditors Overconfident in Their Ability to Assess Risks Associated with Enterprise Resource Planning Systems. Journal of Information Systems, 29(2), 235-235.

Leon, A. (2014). Enterprise resource planning. McGraw-Hill Education.

Pai, A., & Rane, S. (2014). Development and implementation of maintenance management module of enterprise resource planning in maintenance of power plant. International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, 5(4), 534-543.

Seethamraju, R. (2015). Adoption of software as a service (SaaS) enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Information systems frontiers, 17(3), 475-492.

Shaul, L., & Tauber, D. (2013). Critical success factors in enterprise resource planning systems: Review of the last decade. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 45(4), 55.

Sustainment, A. (2014). Enterprise Resource Planning.