ERP Business
Integrated ERP business software is becoming an increasingly common and vital aspect of back and front office task management for smaller, mid-range, and large global firms. The proliferation of ERP business solutions has moved well beyond the manufacturing sector, where it originated decades ago, but it still offers a high level of support and functionality to firms in the manufacturing and distribution sectors with a strong reliance on customer and strategic partner relationships. Manufacturing and service sectors that seem to make the most use of integrated ERP business solutions lie in the areas of product and process manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, apparel, electronics, food and beverage distribution and construction. At the high budget level, the aerospace and automotive sectors are also becoming increasingly dependent on ERP business systems to manage scheduling, assembly, inventory control and supply chain management.
But due to a convergence of recent events taking place over the last six or seven years, a steady shift is moving across the ERP business solution market landscape. Developers and providers are in the process of turning new focus and attention downstream to appeal to smaller clients and compete for market share at the smaller and mid-range business levels. As a result of this shift in attention, product modules that were once complex and cost prohibitive for firms with restrictive technology budgets are now moving steadily within reach. And as this transition takes place, innovations and improvements continue to arise. As product modules become more scalable, streamlined, efficient and affordable, they also expand in capability and increase in reliability. This has corresponded with a rise in offsite hosting solutions and software service providers, intermediary firms that can allow smaller companies to make use of centralized ERP infrastructures without incurring the high upfront costs and long term maintenance expenses associated with in house architectures. Smaller clients using remote hardware and cloud computing can also sidestep the need to hire and retain a full time IT staff.
How did these events come to pass? It may help to understand the brief history of ERP business solutions in a context as you move forward with your investigation of solutions to find the right infrastructure for your firm.
ERP business solutions first appeared on the technology landscape in the late 1980s in response to demand from manufacturing operations managers who were looking for ways to control complex overlapping functions on factory shop floors. Assembly, scheduling, ordering, receiving and other tasks often required input from multiple departments, but at that point, most businesses were typically running their separate departments on separate software platforms. This meant that departments were isolated from one another and could not share access to the same databases and other documents without complex data conversion software. But with the arrival of ERP business system integration, a wide variety of business functions could be controlled through a single centralized server system. This revolutionized productivity and efficiency and spurred the popularity of ERP systems across multiple business sectors, not just manufacturing but also service, government offices, university systems, and even hospitals and branches of the military.
But due to a convergence of recent events taking place over the last six or seven years, a steady shift is moving across the ERP business solution market landscape. Developers and providers are in the process of turning new focus and attention downstream to appeal to smaller clients and compete for market share at the smaller and mid-range business levels. As a result of this shift in attention, product modules that were once complex and cost prohibitive for firms with restrictive technology budgets are now moving steadily within reach. And as this transition takes place, innovations and improvements continue to arise. As product modules become more scalable, streamlined, efficient and affordable, they also expand in capability and increase in reliability. This has corresponded with a rise in offsite hosting solutions and software service providers, intermediary firms that can allow smaller companies to make use of centralized ERP infrastructures without incurring the high upfront costs and long term maintenance expenses associated with in house architectures. Smaller clients using remote hardware and cloud computing can also sidestep the need to hire and retain a full time IT staff.
How did these events come to pass? It may help to understand the brief history of ERP business solutions in a context as you move forward with your investigation of solutions to find the right infrastructure for your firm.
ERP business solutions first appeared on the technology landscape in the late 1980s in response to demand from manufacturing operations managers who were looking for ways to control complex overlapping functions on factory shop floors. Assembly, scheduling, ordering, receiving and other tasks often required input from multiple departments, but at that point, most businesses were typically running their separate departments on separate software platforms. This meant that departments were isolated from one another and could not share access to the same databases and other documents without complex data conversion software. But with the arrival of ERP business system integration, a wide variety of business functions could be controlled through a single centralized server system. This revolutionized productivity and efficiency and spurred the popularity of ERP systems across multiple business sectors, not just manufacturing but also service, government offices, university systems, and even hospitals and branches of the military.
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