GHYC Youth

What is ERP system capability and how is it changing to meet your small business back office needs?The answer may determine the outcome of your decisions about ERP infrastructures and productpurchases and may help you find the integrated business solutions that can move your small businessforward and help you survive and thrive during the current challenging business climate. ERP systems, system alternatives, and product suites are undergoing a rapid series of market evolutions designedto make them more affordable and also more flexible and reliable in order to meet the needs of smalland mid-sized business clients. Enterprise resource planning business solutions have been a fixture onthe business technology landscape for the last two decades, but only in recent years have they madetheir way into small business models and become indispensible back office tools that can revolutionizethe way small companies handle functions like accounting, human resource management, customerrelationship management, and payroll. But what is an ERP system capability and do you need an integratedsystem for these tasks? Chances are you can benefit greatly from a standardized software platform, butif you looked into the option a few years ago, you may have found it cost ineffective or infeasible foryour small operation. Now may be an excellent time to reopen your investigation and return the optionto the table, since the market place shift that began around 2005.
What is ERP system capability?
Enterprise resource planning business solutions were first introduced in the manufacturing sector inthe late 1980s and early 1990s in response to demand from operations managers who were searching for ways to organize tasks and control complex operations on factory shop floors. Some of these tasks involved scheduling, planning, ordering and assembly, which generally required input and datacontributions from multiple departments. But at that time, most business enterprises were running their separate departments and business teams on isolated Microsoft ERP software platforms that could control onefunction but were not able to intersect. Data bases were also isolated, and employees could not shareaccess to data and other documents that could have contributed to overlapping functions. Once the firstearly ERP systems were implemented, however, employees across the company could run standardized applications from a central server architecture that could be owned and maintained by the companyand an in-house IT staff.
This changed operations and revolutionized efficiency and productivity on factory floors. And eventhough these systems were very large, cumbersome and expensive, they quickly became popular across the product and process manufacturing sectors. Eventually they were adopted by other business modelsas well, and were implemented by government offices, university systems and many other entities thatwere large enough to afford and maintain them. They were still out of reach for smaller businesses, butthis began to change soon after the approach of the new millennium, which led to a peak in demandthat then began to trail off as market saturation set in at the high budget level.