Question

1- Have you used an ERP system in your work? a) If so in what area? How did you see it interface with the rest of the company? b) Regardless if you have used an ERP system or not, describe what you think the benefits of using an ERP system are.

Answer 1

1.

Yes , I have used ERP software in project management and customer relationship management (CRM) areas.

a) Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a software which is used by organizations to manage all the organizational activities such as core supply chain, manufacturing, services, financial processes, project management, risk management and compliance. ERP provides an integrated and continuously updated view of core business processes by using common centralize databases. ERP system is used to track various business resources such as cash flow , raw materials, production capacity along with the sell orders, purchase orders, and payroll of the business. Individual ERP applications can offer software as a service (SaaS) . ERPs connect every aspect of a business. Now a days , ERP systems are playing a vital role to manage thousands of businesses. An ERP system covers all of the functional areas of a business such as financial accounting , human resources , manufacturing , supply chain management, project management , customer relationship management (CRM) etc.

There are three different types of ERP implementations.

• Cloud ERP  
• On premise ERP
• Hybrid ERP

b) Benefits of ERP system are mentioned below.

• ERP systems improves the efficiency of a business through a common user experience across the business. It also improves business insight, reporting and planning .
• It centralizes business data which helps to eliminate the need to synchronize changes between multiple systems and this also brings the legitimacy and transparency to each bit of statistical data.
• It reduces risk through improved data integrity and financial controls. Thus, the operational cost of the business becomes lower.
• ERP increases opportunities for collaboration. Here data can be taken in many forms including documents, files, forms, audio and video, and emails.
• Both on-premise and cloud-based ERP systems enhance the degree of security of sensitive data. The database system the ERP software enables centralized backups of all the critical and sensitive data.
• It also offers standardization of common processes, one integrated system, standardized reporting, improved key performance indicators (KPI).
• ERP allows sales forecasting and through which inventory optimization can be achieved.
• Most up-to-date ERP systems also support e-commerce integration.