ERP – adapt to it or change it for u?

So what is ERP – Enterprise resource planning?

“is an Integrated computer-based system used to manage internal and external resources including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources” . Basically the ERP systems unify the business processes in 1 company, leaving an elementary transition from 1 phase to the next.

What does ERP provides:

-real time informations about the companies operations

-easily track the latest operations and any changes

- keep track of progress in each particularly field

- efficiency and unification within a business enterprise

- increased accuracy of data for long term planning

- decrease the risk of loosing sensitive data

Using an ERP system we can see a more unified, competent, transparent, technical and cost-effective business environment.

But how an ERP system is implemented?

Should we adapt our business to it or shall we personalize the ERP model to our business? There are a lot of pros and cos when we need to decide on this issue, but everything is more or less linked to the best practices modules already incorporated in the ERP packages, and the fact that customization of the ERP modules is costly and time consuming. Studies were made and concluded that companies which implemented industry best practices “decreased mission-critical project tasks such as configuration, documentation, testing and training. In addition, the use of best practices reduced over risk by 71% when compared to other software implementations”. Another opinion about this subject came from Peter Brabeck-Lemathe in an interview in Burrus-Barbey 200o “Nestle is more people oriented than systems oriented. Systems are necessary and useful but should never be an end in themselves …Maybe some organizations are driven by systems. We are not. The I.T. system is there to support an organization and not the other way around. We do not create an I.T. system first and then adapt our organization to our I.T. system”.

Because of the risk associated to the implementation of ERP system, and the complexity of the systems usually companies are forced to adapt their business to the system neglecting to map their current business process. Therefore a thorough analysis of the business process is very important when selecting an ERP vendor and the starting of the ERP implementation. Some cases show as one of the main disadvantage when choosing the ERP is the loosing of the competitive advantage the company has, due to the redesign of the processes to adapt to the ERP modules, and others show the increase of sustainable competitive advantage after a thorough preparation.

So the answer to the question stands into each company by itself, in the analysis and preparation which was done prior to the implementation, in the resources each has for the implementation, and in the particularity of the business.

Next step MDM…..