ERP: An introduction

Software Trends:

Initially application software was developed in-house. To maintain this in-house developed software, the organisation needed a team of experts – who were expensive to maintain. This gave way for outsourcing of application software development. Outsourcing led to over dependence on third parties. This also created a situation wherein there were several third party software, and it became increasingly difficult for the various applications to "talk" to each other. Data exchange between the various softwares became increasingly difficult or impossible. Integration between the various application softwares was grossly lacking. So, instead of buying best of breed solutions for Materials Management, Accounting, Human Resources and Planning, it was necessary to have a single window solution or a single package solution, which would address all the different business processes and offer the advantage of being totally integrated. ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning provided an integrated single window solution, which catered to the above need.