ERP software systems, also called enterprise resource planning business solutions, have represented the dynamic intersection between business and technology that has defined workflow and business management for our era. The arrival of ERP systems on the market landscape marked a huge step forward in workplace efficiency, and recent years have led additional innovations that benefit small business owners and may even help large sectors of the small business market to survive and thrive during our current challenging economic climate.
If you run a small or mid-sized business and youre considering the addition of ERP software to your back office management tool kit, youll want to begin a comprehensive investigation of provider reviews and online product demonstrations. But before you begin your review process, it may help to gain a strong understanding of what ERP systems are, how theyve evolved over the years, and what they can offer to a business like yours.
The earliest ERP software systems were developed and implemented in the manufacturing sector during the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that point, large manufacturing firms and many other large businesses were using computers to manage office functions, but they typically ran their departments and teams on separate software platforms. These isolated platforms were able to handle specific functionalities, but they could not intersect. Employees could not share the same applications, and they were also unable to easily share data that could have facilitated overlapping tasks. This caused specific problems for the manufacturing sector, where shop floor operations required complex scheduling and relied on the contributions of multiple departments.
Once early ERP systems were in place, multiple employees from a wide variety of teams and business units could run standardized applications on a central server architecture that was typically owned by the company and maintained by an in house IT staff. Employees could also share access to databases that were housed on the server and could be updated by any user in real time.
The first early ERP systems were not without flaws. They were very large and cumbersome, they were expensive to install and maintain, and implementations often failed due to poorly communicated goals or ineffective employee training. But in spite of their problems,
ERP Systems were very popular among the large firms that could afford them. They revolutionized productivity and efficiency on shop floors and greatly improved the management of back office tasks. Implementation demand soon spread beyond the world of manufacturing and into other sectors, as well as government offices, university systems and non-profit organizations.
Demand for
ERPbusiness solutions reached a peak as the new millennium approached. At that time, business owners were searching for ways to free themselves from outdated legacy systems before any productivity slowdowns that were anticipated as a result of the transition. A few years after the transition occurred, however, demand at the high budget level began to cool. This left developers and providers in the situation that defines the market today. In order to stay competitive and relevant, developers are actively scaling and customizing products to meet the needs of smaller business clients.
