19 Nov Enterprise Resource Planning Software
Over the last few years enterprise resource planning software has gained enormous popularity and has reached a point where successful businesses almost cannot exist without it. The speed of information flow today becomes vitally important in business management. ERP software solutions are designed to enhance all business processes. It covers all the main areas of business and enables employees and departments to collaborate and work with the same data source across the whole company. In order to choose an efficient ERP software solution and understand whether this product is needed for your business and what benefits it can bring it’s important to understand exactly what it does.
What is enterprise resource planning software?
Enterprise Resource Planning software is a core tool used by companies of different sizes to integrate and coordinate flows of information in every area of their business. ERP software solutions provide businesses with benefits that enable success. If we look at the most significant, we can include: current access to information, profitability increase, productivity growth, increased insight for more assured decision making, advanced flexibility, scalability, adaptability and many others.
What does an ERP system consist of?
All ERP systems, regardless of who their developer is, combines a common architecture that can be described as follows:
Platform. Basic features and environment for the work of modules and components. In the code of the platform, changes can only be made by a developer. Users and implementation specialists do not have access to this software code.
Data management. A database, including storage and methods for processing data.
Modules. Components that connect to the platform as needed. All of them work with a single database and use the basic functionality (as needed).
How ERP can help your business?
ERP systems are very powerful and versatile, they have the opportunity to implement a huge number of processes to your business. They are designed to help your business grow. No matter what size of business you own when it starts growing it becomes more complex, and you need to be certain you have enough resources to accommodate that growth. ERP software helps your business to experience a vast amount of visible and invisible benefits. ERP systems provide your business with the competitive advantage through improved business performance among other things, integrating supply chain management, inventory management, customer orders management, production planning and managing, customer relationship management, accounting, human resource management, and other activities that take place in a modern business. When implementing enterprise resource solutions in the first stage only a part processes can be used, a significant amount of processes and additional modules can be added allowing to implement new solutions within the growth of your business. Modern ERP systems provide industry-specific practices embedded in the system to support operational processes, which provide a solid foundation for any needed customisation. ERP software gives you more control so you can see what happens in different parts of your business, where you spend cash and how each unit performs in real-time.
On-premise ERP software vs. Cloud ERP software
When considering an Enterprise Resource Planning software solution for your business, one of the most important decisions to be made is choosing between two types of ERP implementation (the deployment methods) on-premise or cloud-based. Deploying ERP software solution on-premise means it is deployed and self-managed either locally or remotely on a company’s computers and servers. On-premise ERP software has complete control of ownership to the software licence, ability to modify or upgrade the system and complete control over the critical business data. One of the major benefits of this type of software is data confidentiality. Since the data is located on the premises of the business it does not require the transmission and storage of data off-site. On-premise ERP software can cost substantially more and it will require well-trained personnel to maintain the system. Because of the unique instance of the set-up, on-premise ERP software allows integration with existing software and hardware resources. This type of software is easier to customise and integrate as it’s not constrained by public cloud upgrade requirements. Cloud-based ERP is designed to address the inflexibility of existing ERP software by allowing businesses to choose the deployment option that fits their specific needs. Cloud ERP is flexible and cost-effective and is considered to be the most profitable option for small and medium-sized businesses. Cloud ERP offers extensive benefits for growth and expansion of the business. Cloud ERP software allows businesses to deploy ERP-based software on the Cloud without investing in hardware. Cloud ERP systems are easy to implement and cost-effective. Cloud ERP software is billed by one user per month on a subscription basis. Cloud ERP software applications operate in an open environment with easy accessibility which allows users to access information at anytime and anywhere, using any device with secure Internet access. Cloud-based systems ensure more secure backup of data and data recovery because data stored in the cloud is replicated across multiple machines. Most cloud ERP solutions meet to comply with standard data privacy regulations and follow predefined procedures to forecast risks and respond to malicious activities.
Conclusion
Enterprise Resource Planning software has become a vitally important tool in a modern business. Using ERP business management software companies can streamline all processes and achieve huge success from this. ERP systems allow faster and more effective control of both expected and unforeseen company changes which is especially important with ongoing competition, constant economic and regulatory change. In deciding to implement an ERP software any business should pay special attention to the choice of a solution that can be predicted to meet the requirements of your business.
A well-designed ERP system will empower a team with the right tools to and, by harnessing a company’s invaluable real-time information everyone, at all levels of the business, can make better-informed decisions.
