ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING: THE WINNING EDGE
ERP is an oft-heard abbreviation in corporate parlance. Most of the enterprises looking to climb up the ladder are fascinated yet frightened by this term. Some of the corporate leaders not fully familiar with ERP have jokingly termed it as Extremely Risky Proposition. While there are, no doubt, costs related to ERP, this article aims to explode the myths surrounding ERP by bringing out its benefits and also by suggesting an implementable ERP model.
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) is an enterprise-wide set of management tools that balances demand and supply, containing the ability to link customers and suppliers into a complete supply chain, employing proven business processes for decision-making, and providing high degrees of cross-functional integration among sales, marketing, manufacturing, operations, logistics, purchasing, finance, new product development, and human resources, thereby enabling people to run their business with high levels of customer service and productivity, and simultaneously lower costs and inventories; and providing the foundation for effective ecommerce.
ERP predicts and balances demand and supply. It is an enterprise-wide set of forecasting, planning, and scheduling tools, which:
• Links customers and suppliers into a complete supply chain,
• Employs proven processes for decision-making, and
• Coordinates the functions of sales, marketing, operations, logistics, purchasing, finance, product development, and human resources.
Enterprise Resource Planning, when operating at a high level of effectiveness, will do several things for a company. First, it will enable the company’s people to generate enormous benefits. Many companies have experienced, as a direct result of ERP dramatic increases in responsiveness, productivity, on-time shipments and sales, along with substantial decreases in lead times, purchase costs, quality problems, and inventories.
Further, ERP can...