You should do a risk assessment first.
A risk assessment is a process of identifying all of the potential threats that could disrupt your business operations. Why do businesses go through the trouble of a risk assessment ? Why don’t they just prepare for any threat? Risks have to be prioritized so that focus can be placed on making disaster recovery strategies for those that are most likely to happen. For example, if your business is in the arid southwestern United States, you don’t need to identify hurricane as a risk therefore you don’t need to spend time on planning for recovery from one.

List in your plan the people who are key players in your business operations.
These are people who perform the job functions that your business cannot do without. Not everyone in the business is critical and in some disaster situations a business would have to operate on a skeleton crew. The people who would be on that skeleton crew are the ones who would be your critical employees.

Your plan must list all critical equipment.
Critical equipment like computers, printers, copiers, and communication devices are all examples of items that your business might not be able to do without. Your business may also depend on specialized equipment. Your plan should give instructions for moving this equipment or you may have designated an alternate site where this equipment must be present.

Identify all paper documents critical to your business operations.
This is why it is important to have a filing system where these documents can be identified. You need to identify all documents related to accounts payables (e.g., utility bills, leases, bills for critical services). Also important are customer contracts, banking documents, documents related to the formation of your business, and tax documents. Think about what documents you would need if you need to start your business all over again.

Locate all computer file backups and installation software.
You should have a computer file backup strategy already in place which includes both on-site and off-site backups. Also important is identifying all of the install software needed to make computers at the alternate location operational for your specific business requirements.

Where are you going to relocate when the need arises ?
In some cases, your staff might be able to work from home. Otherwise, you will need to identify the place, wherever it is, that you will set up and resume operations. The alternate location should have the minimum facilities required to run your critical equipment and computers plus have sufficient telephone lines.

Don’t forget to test your business continuity plan.
This involves doing a full dry run of switching over to your alternate location. Remember that continuity plans and backups are oftentimes given low importance until you need them. Actually, they should be given the highest of priority so that the plan executes smoothly.

For example, the sales unit should be aware of how many products are there in the inventory and the inventory department should be aware of how much products are in the middle of manufacturing and the manufacturing unit should be aware of the raw materials available for further manufacturing. If these data are properly communicated, then the productivity of the company can be increased to a huge level.

Synchronizing the information is of most important to manufacturing company because every part of their business units requires communication with the other part. In order to achieve this synchronicity usage of Enterprise resource planning software is necessary. Enterprise resource planning software is designed specifically to integrate all data available across the company and produce meaningful result from the data. Every data is collected and integrated into a unified system.

Though enterprise resource planning is an integrated system, it requires many software and hardware modules for its functionality. If the requirements posed by the vendors who provide enterprise resource planning software are successfully met the company, then the ERP system implementation should be successful. There are a very few challenges involved in the ERP implementation. If those hurdles are crossed and if the ERP system in is installed successfully, then it is definitely going to serve the company in raising the productivity to a high level.

Here are some of the benefits which the enterprise resource planning software gives to its clients specifically to the manufacturing companies:
1. Integrated service – ERP systems helps in integrating the data and providing synchronized service to its users.

2. ERP systems require feeding of data only once. When data is fed to one of the systems, then it gets automatically populated to every part of the software in no time.

3. The amount of paper work required is reduced to a huge amount. There is no need to keep loads of records in paper to keep track of the company’s performance. There are lots of applications and customizations available with the tool itself which could produce reports with a single click.

4. The inventory cycle time can be reduced to a huge level. The inventory cycle is the time taken for the product to get fully manufactured and delivered to the customer. Reduction in inventory cycle time means increase in the production. With this, the satisfaction level of the customer gets improved and also attracts more customers.

5. Labor costs are reduced to a considerable amount of time. With the availability of data in real time managing employees and managing real time production data can be in control.

6. Production time can be decreased with the usage of enterprise resource planning software. It helps in eliminating repetitive process and helps in breaking down the production time.

These benefits over takes some of the minor disadvantages of the ERP software and because of this reason many companies opt for enterprise resource planning rather than any other methods.

Every company is looking to increase its market value. For, this they are re-looking into the factors which affect the company’s productivity and management. Every company is looking to use their resources effectively so that their business is done more effectively and efficiently. Most of the companies decides to use software which could manage their whole enterprise and the information should be available with the enterprise.

With this need, enterprise resource planning came into picture. Enterprise resource planning is a software based system which helps in managing every functionality and operation of the company. It ensures that there is proper and reliable data communication between various parts of the business units. This helped many businesses to increase their productivity and cut costs on management related funds.

Usage of enterprise resource planning software have helped many companies in analyst and optimize their business process, enhancing the supply chain management, efficient control of inventory, enhanced decision making by providing precise reports, integrating various business units and developing transparency all over the business.

In a typical corporation which implemented ERP successfully , the customer sales department can get access to the purchase department, inventory department data can be viewed by the sales department and the top management can see the overall structure and the work flow of the company with a single click. This is what a comprehensive enterprise resource planning software is capable of.

The impact of the enterprise resource planning can be seen evident with the company even before 12 months of implementation. With proper planning and successful implementation ERP can provide a strong platform for better productivity. The implementation of ERP helped many companies in increasing the value chain in the market. It also created confidence among its customers. Share holders also bought shares of these companies with confidence.

In previous stage before ERP comes into practice, companies used separate software for each service. Separate tools were used for sales tracking, financial management and for human resource management. Lots of employees were employed for managing separate software. This resulted in redundant technology, service was poor and the staffs found it very difficult to integrate data from these services and create a report out of it.

Critical information could be extracted from such independent software. But, with the advent of enterprise resource planning software, managing all the resources under a single system was made much easier. Also, lots of manual work involved in resource management was cut down to a large amount.

Compared to the big industries, small and medium sized industries used the ERP efficiently. In general enterprise resource planning can be used to introduce standard industry process, implementing integration across various inter related business units within the company, real time access to the information and creating analytical report with a single click.

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.

The science of business performance management heavily relies on the ability to create a series of critical tests to assess whether the program is successful or not. These do not necessarily have to be on a strategic level. They can also be set on an individual or local basis.

The first stage is to set up a business data analysis program with the specific goals of trying to change the performance levels of the organization from the less desirable to the more desirable characteristics.

The desirable characteristics are crucial because they will contain a basis for ambition as well as a realistic target based on the knowledge of the industry as a whole. Once these goals are measurable, they then become key performance indicators (KPIs) that will form the basis of any assessment of the project either on a one off basis or on a continuous basis.

Key performance indicators are always supported by data and therefore it has to be a management priority to ensure that there are facilities for presenting accurate data in a timely fashion. Obviously performance management will mean different things to different people and there might be the scope for allocating different data sets or schedules depending on need. Sometimes there is an obsession with financial performance indicators whereas it is possible to measure the non-financial data which gives you an accurate picture of the organization.

There are a large variety of business performance metrics and indicators, and they cannot be exhaustively described within the constraints of this article. However I will briefly touch on some of the major ones; the most important metrics will measure customer satisfaction and their relationship with the company. This is the basis for any profitability and therefore they ought to be prioritized.

The accountant will naturally pay close attention to the financial metrics such as cash flows, debt, capital investments and the speedy conclusion of commitments. Without finance the company will fail so managers must never ignore the implications of finance in any business performance management activity that they undertake. However this should not be to the total exclusion of other criteria.

There are also non-traditional metrics that are slowly creeping into business practice. For example twenty years ago the environmental impact of business activities was largely ignored as a fad for the dopey rich kids or the political correct tree huggers. The pursuit of the bottom line was king and such concerns were not even subordinate. They were simply excluded altogether. However as the awareness of ecological issues has grown, it has been necessary to insist that this is included as part of the core metrics.

As always the key is to understand what is need to get your business to the place you want it to be. The metrics and key performance indicators are the tools for you to assess whether you have been successful in your business performance management program.

With the help of enterprise resource planning the company can streamline their work flow, can provide enhanced support to their customers, real time availability of data on sales, inventory and raw material availability, reducing a considerable amount of paper works and finally it assists in the global operations.

As a whole enterprise resource planning is software designed to boost the company’s productivity. Though there are lots of advantages with enterprise resource planning, there are also few drawbacks with this. One of the main drawbacks is that it takes more time and amount to implement.

Let’s see some of the key features which make this software a huge success in the market:
1. Financial management:
Corporate Financial administration is always a big and important task in any company. Every company is under scrutiny of monetary bodies which regulates the financial flow. ERP has a good financial administration component which makes it a attraction for many companies. There are several benefits in enterprise resource planning related to financial management.

Starting from the invoices to the cash receipts, ERP can be customized to store much information and if effectively used, ERP can help in stabilizing the financial situation of a company. ERP provides real time tracking of cash flow and timely financial reports can be created.

2. Human resource management:
Some of the key factors in the human resource management are payroll management, employee administration, tracking the personal information of the employees and little other legal information. Using the traditional human resource management was complex. Managers found it very difficult to track the progress of an employee and also on tracking the information regarding the employees.

With the advent of ERP, a lot more information can be gathered and maintained related to human resources. This involves talent management, recruitment management, scheduling, attendance and time management, etc. The tools can also be customized based on the need of the human resource managers.

3. Supply chain management:
Assessing the demand and matching the needs of the customers is also one of the key functions of the business. With increase in the competitions, this part is gaining much importance in a business. Failing to collect and forecast this information can have adverse affect on the productivity. It can also degrade the company’s status in the economy. ERP software can take care of the supply chain management right from the beginning till the end.

4. Customer relationship management:
This method also called as CRM is the most required part in sales. Customers are the most valuables to each company and they work based on the needs of the customers. CRM ensures reliable and proper communication of customer related information to the sales team and then to the marketing team.