Previously, enterprise resource planning was used only of large business companies. It required lots of money to be invested. Small scale and medium sized companies were not ready to invest a large amount for buying software and employing staffs for managing ERP software.

Keeping this in mind, ERP vendors started diversifying their enterprise resource planning software by releasing many versions of the software which could assist small companies too.

Also, small sized companies might not require all the tools and customizations available for the big companies. The ERP software got tailored particularly to meet the small sized companies and for increasing the productivity. After this, small sized business people also started buying ERP software which matched their investment amount.

From the early 1990’s ERP helped the companies in driving down their cost and also helped them in operating more efficiently. Effective data management also helped streamlining the business process effectively. Planning, manufacturing, marketing, sales and quoting services kept on improving. Stock control, financial tracking and customer service also got better with ERP. Many time consuming and labor related processes were eliminated by the small business with the usage of enterprise resource planning software.

The flexibility which ERP offers is definitely a very big advantage which interests the small business. Flexibility and the real time control over the price and the jobs are the key features for a small sized company. Concise reporting is also a main factor which decides the quality of the company.

Based on these needs, ERP vendors have made installation of the related software as very less complex with much less manual job needed. The user friendliness of the applications also got improved. Adding more users or customers will no way affect the functionality of ERP.

Many small businesses are already enjoying the benefits after successful ERP implementation. The profit of the company has certainly increased after the usage of ERP provided the implementation procedures are followed perfectly. Business which implemented ERP successfully saw their business profit increasing within one year itself.

A good ERP system comes with essential features that will provide the functionality of comparing the hours of working of the professionals and the actual hours of work which was paid as a salary. In fact, many small businesses just doubled their return on income with just using this service effectively. With this ERP, they were able to monitor the time of production, cost, employee activity, overall performance of the company and many more crucial information.

Before setting up ERP systems, small business must first identify the business requirements. The impact which the ERP is going to have on the business should be well analyzed. Cost factor involved in implementation should be set aside initially. Once the requirements are well planned, then comparison can be made on different vendors available and the vendor which provides cost effective service and be opted.

The other approach is to set out an over-arching strategy model which will ultimately determine the processes and outcome of the commissioning. This article is intended to provide both an overview and introduction to the fundamentals.

Essentially the business intelligence tool consists of a mechanism (usually an application software package) whose main function is to extract information from within the already existing information resources, classify and interpret that information based on the agreed industry or sector algorithms, process that information into data sets that can point towards patterns or trends before finally establishing protocols for disseminating the resultant information to the end-users.

Whilst this may appear to be a relatively straightforward process that is based on logic, the reality is that there are many pitfalls to be found within this seeming linear activity structure. The degree of success with which each individual firm will be able to use its business intelligence can ultimately be traced back to the commissioning strategy when various tools where being selected.

The tools can very broadly be classified as consisting of spreadsheet based programs and their variants, data reports or queries, online analytical processing systems, digital Business Intelligence Dashboard Suites and mining software. These in turn will feed into localized information protocols that drive performance management. The combination for each of these tools will depend on the particular needs and constraints facing the business in question.

The vital thing at this stage is to appreciate what you want as decision maker and being aware of the availability spectrum on the market. At this stage, it is best to agree a mix of either all or a combination of the tools to be embedded within the overall strategy. It is very important to understand that not every tool detailed in the list above will be suitable for every business or for different segments within the same business.

Some people even argue that experimentation is called for in the preliminary stages before settling onto a particular combination of tools. If the business has the time and resources, the trial and error approach might give them more time to select the best combination. Alternatively they might decide to commission purpose-built tools that are designed to cater for the specific demands of a project. This is where business intelligence is highly specialized and consequently highly accurate.

Finally cost is always an issue especially if the senior decision makers are of the view that other priorities are more likely to directly impact on the bottom line. The costs are likely to go even higher if the components are bought on a standalone basis rather than as part of a package. However the skeleton overview above provides a framework through which each business will be able to assess what is available in the technology markets and then commission the appropriate business intelligence tool or combination of tools.

Implement an enterprise resource planning software has lots of ups and downs. The anticipation that a company expects might differ. It is very essential for the ERP vendors to make sure that the anticipations of the staffs who are going to use the tool is met successfully.

Some of the essential points and challenges that should be noted during the implementation of the ERP software are as follows:
1. Effective planning and implementation :
As with any other software installation, enterprise resource planning software also requires high level of planning for the successful ERP System implementation. The requirements from the company which opts for installation should be taken and customizations should be done accordingly. The customers should also ask for more templates based on the skills of the staff.

Templates are better used to reduce the time involved in customizing the tool manually. Before implementing a template, the impact which the template poses on the work flow should also be well determined. The changes to the template should also be done proactively. Instead of dwelling on the changes, templates which have customizable feature can be readily used.

2. Training :
Similar to the customization in the implementation, the vendor of enterprise resource planning software should also decide on customizing the training needs. It is always better to choose the vendor who has lots of experience in implementing the ERP to similar companies. These types of vendors will have more knowledge and they have better understanding of the business and try to fit in the ERP’s smartly and easily.

Based on their experience, they also know the right path of training to be provided. Most vendors would have a general session for explaining the whole ERP system architecture on user level. Then, separate trainings will held based on the nature of work they are going to do using ERP.

3. Mock live experience :
Mock live experience is a live training before starting operations. For performing this mock live experience, ERP would be implemented on some of the systems and trainings are given to the staff so that they can get an idea about what they are going to work. They can better understand the platform.

The hands-on experience will definitely throw some light on their understanding of ERP. Mock live experience also helps the staffs for providing valuable points on customization before enterprise resource planning software gets fully implemented in their company.

4. Anticipation management :
Anticipation management is one of the essential keys for an effective ERP implementation. Staff should have a clear understanding of the daily routine work with the ERP.

5. Follow up and support :
Experts of ERP should always be present in the site where ERP is used to handle problematic situations.

Material resource planning is also a software based management of inventory and product productivity managing. It was also used for managing the process of manufacturing. Enterprise resource planning got evolved from material resource planning when the software architectures got ‘routing’ as one of its major part.

Material resource planning didn’t take care of capacity planning of a company. The method of finding the capacity of production which the organization requires and meeting the demands in the market is termed as capacity planning. As with increase in the demand and supply of products got increased, demand for software which could manage capacity planning also got increased.

By incorporating capacity planning, material resource planning got changed into enterprise resource planning. Enterprise resource planning handled improvement in planning of every operation within a company like inventory, shipping, invoicing, manufacturing, accounting and logistics. Every business units present in the company like human resource management, quality management, marketing, sales, billing, delivery and inventory management are also covered by ERP.

Before ERP was developed, many software were available just to manage an individuals to manage their income. But, with the complexity involved in managing resources for corporations, many vendors started developing software in the name of ERP.

During the 1990’s period, many companies faced the Y2K problem. The systems other than ERP didn’t have the capability to eliminate this problem. Many companies which foresaw this Y2K problem thought wisely and they started replacing existing systems with ERP systems.

From then on, the ERP systems had a boost in their production. We can say that, a considerable amount of risk involved in the Y2K was reduced to a huge amount by the ERP systems. There was a rapid growth in sales after companies started implementing ERP.

ERP systems are sometimes called as back office. This is because, ERP systems doesn’t include data which are related to customer or general public. They are not directly involved in this system instead only the information which are closely related to the company are take into account by ERP. But this may not be 100% correct. Because, a type of ERP called as customer relationship management ( CRM ) deals with data directly related to customers. This type of ERP is called as front office.

In the early 2000’s, the term ‘ERP II’ got evolved. This is to indicate that the next generation of ERP software was available. ERP II based software had many more new features included. The key feature is that they came as web based software tool. This ensured that there is a real time access to the systems for everyone including customer, suppliers and to the employees. Now, the ERP software is being called as Enterprise Application Suite or EAS. EAS systems are now including every segments of the business and using browsers as thin clients, information is made available to its users.

To successfully implement an enterprise resource planning software, the company should clearly mention its requirements to the vendor and there should also be sufficient software managing staffs employed by the company solely for operating and maintaining the ERP applications.

Studying enterprise resource planning requires studying different areas. This is not as simple as to learn single software. There are many areas involved in its study which varies from the implementation of the software, outsourcing of ERP, studying impact which it can cause to the international business economy, job opportunities, etc.

The main for the development of ERP is ultimately to increase the productivity and value of a company by assisting the company in fine tuning the manufacturing process. The first software which was implemented for a similar kind of management was named as ‘Material resource planning’ (MRP) in 1975. And later by incorporating many new technologies MRP got evolved into enterprise resource planning (ERP).

The enterprise resource planning systems will collect the data related to the company and stores into a single repository. It also takes into account the several processes and the data sources pertaining to the company. For implementing these data and product services, various software and hardware modules will be used. These hardware and software modules are integrated to form a single enterprise resource planning system.

If the ERP system is planned and implemented successfully then it is undoubtedly going to serve the company is raising its productivity. But there are many challenges involved in planning, implementing and integrating the ERP system.

The challenges involved starts from the point of selecting the right vendor. Failure of enterprise resource planning can never be analyzed or traced back. So, before implementing the software, lots of planning should be done. Also, the requirements posed by the vendor should be fulfilled completely. The vendor also should be in a position to provide successful implementation within time and the quality should also be good.

Some of the other challenges are lack in knowledge level of the employees. The management should thoroughly understand the process and should choose the right vendor. Lack in expertise might cause huge loss. Some companies limit the budget of implementing ERP software to a very minimal level. This in turn will result in less customization and templates.

The real usage of ERP software might be in a toss. Sufficient information can’t be managed and leading to very minimal information to be available. The other major challenge which every organization faces is the lack of support staffs. For a successful ERP implementation, there should be sufficient number of employees assigned by the company to work on the tools. If the companies are able to overcome these challenges, then certainly ERP is going to yield them a lot of profit.

ERP has a variety of applications and processes which are available throughout their all business units. Implementing an ERP system is too complex and it can be done only by experts who have in-house skill in this software. This is also the most cost efficient way. There are many consultants and technical advisers available who can assist and implement the software provided requirements are clearly stated.

There are basically three types of services associated with ERP. They are consulting, support and customization. The amount of time required to implement ERP varies for different companies. The factors which depend on the time of implementation are the size of the business, number of modules the business includes, customization required for ERP as demanded by the company, the possibility of the implementation of the demand posed by the company.

ERP systems are distributed applications. They can’t be implemented all at once. There are a number of phases and steps involved in implementing an ERP system. A typical ERP implementation system requires one year and it involves around 150 consultants. This is for big and medium sized companies. But, for small scale companies which have less than 100 employees, the amount of time required for implementation is less. For these companies, planning and implementation doesn’t require more than 3-4 months. With the increase in demand for customization of the software, the time to implement will also increase.

For a successful implementation of ERP, companies should hire third party consultants for a short time till their implementation is over. The companies which implements ERP should also employ some staffs who are dedicated to manage the ERP systems.

Some of the management services required are business analysis, program management and change management. Employing these staffs is also a prerequisite for implementation of ERP. A significant amount of time is required to plan for data migration. This is also the most important point in implementation.

Process preparation:
Most of the ERP vendors have a standard process for their clients. The companies are generally forced to implement the ERP software according to the standards. During this process, vendors make a clear understanding of the business operations of the company and gathers as much as information required from the company.

Configuration:
Before starting the installation of the software, a check is made on the systems to verify whether they could meet the requirements for the software and service to run without any problem. If the systems don’t meet the requirement, the company should upgrade their system configuration. Once the configurations are verified, installation procedure is started.

Services:
After the installation is done, vendors trains the staffs who are going to use the ERP. Trainings are given on using the ERP applications.