Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP is an integration software that complete the system in order to streamline process and information throughout the organization. These processes include inventory and order managing, human resources, account management, customer relation management, and every other thing required to run a business.

Though the term Enterprise Resource Planning was coined by Gartner back in 1990s, its main agenda was control the manufacturing sector and the inventory management department. Here the software engineers used to create the programs while monitoring the inventory and after monitoring the reconciling balance they can prepare a report on the status. After that in the year of 1970s, they further created a Material Requirements Planning or MPR system to schedule production process.

By 1990 both these systems, viz. Enterprise Resource Planning and Material Requirements Planning system expanded and crossed mere inventory control and other such operational processes to include other back office programs like human resource, accounting and setting the stage for an advanced finance management system in the following years.

Further, Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP has again expanded in order to encompass the business intelligence or BI while also incorporating the front office programs like selling force automation, marketing ecommerce and other automation program. With such advancements and products, the success stories are sure to come out of these systems in the due course of time. From small companies to broad industries, from ecommerce to wholesale distributors – Enterprise Resource Planning is the ideal solution to everyone related to this field Oracle Netsuite is an industry leader.

Features

The main feature of Enterprise Resource Planning is that it’s a shared database which supports several functions utilized by multiple business units. Practically it means that the employees across several divisions like sales and accounting may rely on the same basic information for their individual and specific requirement.

Another feature of Enterprise Resource Planning is that it offers somewhat synchronized automation and reporting. Therefore, rather than forcing the employees to run individual databases or spreadsheets that need to be manually checked while generating reports; the ERP solutions help the staffs to pull the reports from a single system.

For example, if the sales orders naturally flow into the finance system without requiring any manual re keying, then the order managing department may process the orders more efficiently, rapidly, and accurately and thereby the finance department can handle the books even faster.

Another special feature of Enterprise Resource Planning includes a dashboard or portal that enables the employees to understand the key metrics or performance of the businesses.

The software as a service or SAAS solution is also mentioned as the cloud computing that helps the fuel of growth. Cloud based solution make the use of ERP software even more affordable. Further, it makes the system programming easier to manage and implement. The cloud computing system also helps in real time report status generation and BI which helps the ERP to evaluate the status.

Thereby the companies of every sizes and audience, are seeking to use cloud ERP systems. This increases productivity and efficiency.