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Enterprise Resource Planning ( Erp ) Technology, Sales Demand, Manufacturing And Market Interface

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The article entitled “Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Technology; Sales Demand, Manufacturing and Market Interface” (Sharma, 2013) begins by pointing out the importance of businesses being sensitive to customer demand across a variety of markets around the world in order to maintain competitiveness. The responses of increasing capacity or simplifying production are not proving as useful as the strategy of improving the integration of sales demand, manufacturing, and marketing (SDM&M), thus making the company more intimately and rapidly responsive to demand. This increased integration involves certain basic questions, such as what process to use to integrate and how to do so. Large companies use ERP technology to achieve SDM&M …show more content…

In spite of these gaps in the research, there is still evidence of the positive effect of the SDM&M interface and the speed and quality of information to overcome uncertainties about demand, unpredictable competitors, the timing and novelty of new products, and other relevant questions. Research recommends that dedicated employee positions exist that integrate the three areas, such as a sales and distribution specialist who is expected to provide the materials departments with updates. Companies have been spending large amounts of money on systems that integrate SDM&M, making it possible to survey the success of an IT-based strategy to address this challenge. By its nature, ERP is a well-integrated, cross-functional system which lends itself to the types of functions required for integration of the three business functions, demand, manufacturing, and marketing. (Sharma, 2013). There are two basic types of ERP research, implementation-oriented and performance-oriented. The first type studies what factors foster success in implementing ERP, while the second investigates factors in ERP that affect performance. Research has shown that companies that use ERP outperform those that do not in functional efficiency, productivity, stock market, and financial metrics. Interestingly, ERP is found to have a neutral or negative effect on customer satisfaction and operating expenses. More predictably, general performance dips

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