Many global organizations are looking for the current trends in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) before making capital investment during their budget allocation. Considering the fact that global economy is still in a state of flux, it is only reasonable that before costs are allocated into a sunk investment like ERP implementation, atleast some thought is given to the prevailing trends.
The most visible trend in ERP from an outside-in approach is a shift in favor of software-as-a-service (SAAS) model. Remember the quote from Napolean Hill, who said "A Goal is a dream with a deadline". In this case, SAAS offering is a smart move in the right direction for many companies.
Next trend for ERP implementation is the simplicity of implementation without sacrificing the flexibility which an enterprise wide solution provides as an offspring. ERP leaders in today's marketplace like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Amdocs are increasingly pushing forth simplicity of implementation as a key selling point. In the past, an ERP was known for outrageously complex implementation. Today, one of the first questions asked by an executive who sponsors an ERP initiative, is the simplicity and smoothness of the learning curve for the performing organization.
Modern organizations today have it in them to remind their every day managers that it is up to them to find a solution map for ERP and get through it. As are result, a strong trend is noticed in ERP to clearly focus on a road map of the future state and compare with the current as is state of affairs. Perhaps this is the reason why, many organizations insist on a core supply chain management (SCM) implementation with a fixed budget, while at the same time talk about customer relationship management (CRM), mobility, business intelligence and human capital management.
Another trend very much noticeable in ERP today is the control, accessibility and security aspects for each ERP feature. "ERP is always created twice, once in the blueprint and another during the implementation", say Anil Baddi, a domain expert in ERP implementation.
In summary, a sustainable ERP implementation seems to always consider above mentioned trends during the planning, budgeting, implementation and maintenance phases.
Systems integrators concur that above trends do play a key role during implementation of ERP, that takes the shape of
- Customer relationship management
- Enterprise data warehousing
- Enterprise information management
- Enterprise performance management
- Governance, risk, and compliance
- Human capital management
- Manufacturing
- Enterprise mobility
- Product life-cycle management
- Service and asset management
- Supply chain management
- Supplier relationship management
