Old Glory

Old Glory

Breathing life into the old warhorse

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ERP needs to embrace newer technologies to retain its old glory

 

When research firm Gartner introduced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) way back in 1990, little did anyone know that one day it will become so ubiquitous that businesses cannot do without it. Created as an extension to Materials Requirements Planning, ERP has come along way in the last two decades.

Though ERP applications have gained prominence across enterprises, web-enabled and open source technologies have emerged as serious challengers.

End-to-end integration no longer means only integration of logistics, financial and HR processes. ERPs have come up with products in the areas of customer relationship management (CRM), supplier relationship management (SRM), product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing optimisation, environmental health and safety, etc and the trend points towards industry micro vertical specialization.

Also, it has been witnessed in the past few years that with the advent of service oriented architecture (SOA), increased flexibility of interfacing has made choices more open for customers. The increased penetration of business applications in the mid-market has also helped ERP implementation take shorter time.

What's Next?
The evolution of new technology is reshaping the product offerings in ERP and enriching the user experience, increasing flexibility, and providing better insight. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is starting to gain traction as a viable deployment option in some ERP market segments including India. Riding on the success of best-of-breed CRM and human capital management (HCM) applications, ERP providers are creating an environment wherein ERP is becoming a must-have for even mid-size businesses.

By end of 2010, experts say, buyers will be a lot savvier about service oriented architecture, native web services, Web 2.0 technologies, business process platform and other application infrastructure products.

The SaaS Saga
Delivering ERP on a SaaS model is a revolutionary approach in enterprise software and offers enterprises of all sizes a viable, scalable and flexible model that will take them to the next level in terms of benefiting from technology.

By 2010, Gartner predicts around 30 percent of new license purchases (in APAC excluding Japan) will be in form of SaaS.

While SMEs have a viable option of monthly subscription in SaaS, large enterprises are bereft of flexible alternatives. But there are players who have started plugging the gap. Microsoft has a different view on ERP being deployed under the SaaS platform.

Although utility of SaaS is expanding, the growth areas remain characterized by horizontal applications adhering to common processes, among distributed virtual workforce by using latest web-enabled technologies. Cloud can be delivered on a hybrid model. Some functions of ERP will be on premise (core operations) and non-core operations can be in the cloud.

The web of convenience
Web-enabled technology most importantly gives customer an option to extend its access to multiple locations without getting worried about clients' installation and desktop level management. Further, it offers options to build home pages, portal environment and more content rich pages to give user consolidated information in one screen.

With the Internet changing the rules of communication, business collaboration has brought a fundamental shift in how companies define and manage their business processes.

Companies no longer look at their business with unifocal attention; trading partners and customers are very much part of the game. As a result, they need systems that support e-business transactions, which is what web-enabled ERP fundamentally helps them with.

The focus is now on quick and simple reconfiguration of business processes, intuitive interfaces that require no training, real-time or near real-time data access, interactive and collaborative features such as real-time chat and white boarding, real-time analysis, and open access to any internal and external users.

Single Intance Order of the Day
As the enterprises get more acquainted with the ERP applications, demands for single instance ERP solutions have become the need of the hour. Of late, enterprises have started preferring single-instance implementation over multiple-instance rollout.

"It is time that companies move on from the multiple systems their companies use today onto a one ERP system," says Surya Bhardwaj, Vice President, India Applications, Oracle India.

"Having a common, global and standardised platform not only reduces the complexity of multiple systems, which is the need of the hour, but also gives the flexibility required to expand into new markets," he adds.

For more information visit http://www.thectoforum.com/content/breathing-life-old-warhorse

About the Author

CTOForum Caters to Chief Information Officers, and is one of 9.9 Media's most successful communities. With a fortnightly publication of CTO Forum, as well as a CIO peer network, CIO Institute, it focuses on promoting the exchange of informed perspectives, management techniques, and new IT business strategies between CIOs and other stakeholders. The idea here is to help members of this community transform from being the head of technology, to being the head of a management team.

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