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Delivering organizational visibility, mission-critical data on a single platform, and supporting collaboration across remote workforces, cloud ERP (enterprise resource planning) platforms help companies make quick decisions in today’s unpredictable business environment.
When… Continue reading
What is an ERP system? It’s a software package that manages key functions in your business with a shared information database.
ERP systems allow you to automate and efficiently… Continue reading
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) requires many components and many different tools. In this piece, we examine five ways ERP is evolving to make your implementation easier.
Most businesses that have moved beyond the startup phase are likely looking into acquiring enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Whether you’re trying to get a handle on how your customer relationship management (CRM) efforts are impacting your bottom line, or if you’re tracking revenue from point-of-sale (POS) to research & development (R&D), ERP can be an asset to your company.
Although ERP is one of the older segments of the business software landscape, ERP vendors are consistently evolving to become more powerful, more affordable, and less complex. Mega-vendors such as Oracle and SAP have a major share of the ERP market, but newer companies are nudging their way into the space with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) options that are changing the game. In this piece, we’ll examine the most important trends to expect from the ERP industry in 2017. Continue reading
Today’s ERP System landscape offers more options than ever before. Here’s a look at how two companies took a strategic approach to choosing the right software for their needs.
The number of options that companies have when choosing an ERP system has changed in a big way. Just take Stratus Ventures Group, which invests in early-stage startups. When the company decided to deploy an ERP system that would be used to run three of its portfolio companies, it started with one overarching requirement: The software had to be cloud-based, and it could not be an Oracle or SAP product.
“They are slow-set in concrete,” Ofir Baharav, general manager of Stratus, said of the biggest names in legacy ERP. “You build them, and then you can’t really move much unless you have a sledgehammer.”
A seismic shift has occurred in the ERP landscape. The term ERP once evoked a years-long, multi-million dollar deployment followed by a 20-year commitment to an inflexible product and for good reason — that’s what an ERP implementation typically required. Yet that’s changing for companies both large and small. Today’s ERP can be whatever a company needs, from isolated pieces of back-office functionality to full-blown cloud-based suites tightly integrated with customer-management systems. Continue reading
It is an oft-repeated mantra in the ERP world that companies should not modify ERP packages. Consultants experienced users and software vendors will tell you that modifications to ERP packages are difficult, expensive and
detrimental to the ongoing operation, maintenance and development of a system.
Yet, it is widely acknowledged that a packaged software product cannot fully meet the needs of anyone company. In response to this conundrum, software developers build a considerable amount of flexibility into their ERP packages to allow users to tailor the look, feel and functionality to better suit their needs and desires. Ideally, this built-in flexibility enables the user to adapt the package enough to eliminate the need for customization — and, in fact, that is the case for many companies.
The tailoring capability in ERP software packages can be as simple as the ability to move things around on screens and menus or as extensive as changes in calculations, database formats, and content. Generally speaking, such changes are stored in a control table that is not altered or replaced when the software is updated by the developer. This means the changes will survive an upgrade and do not have to be redone or revalidated when a new release is installed.
Here is an overview of the types of changes allowed by major ERP software packages. Understand that each developer has its own tools and approaches, so your package may include some of these or others not listed. Continue reading