Literature Review On Enterprise Resource Planning

Adoption of an ERP system enables an organization to eliminate dozens or even hundreds of separate systems and replace them with a single, integrated set of applications for the entire enterprise.

To be successful in today's competitive and continuous evolving information technology (IT) market companies must be able to utilise their skills, information and knowledge to the highest efficiency level possible. Utilisation of and control over these factors will aid companies in acquiring and maintaining competitive advantages over others operating in the same competitive IT market. The implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system would be perfect to suit a

Advantages Koch (2005) and Montgomery (2003) state advantages of using the ERP are; Improvement in the time taken to process the data as each department have same standard and can access to the data easily. Communication between each department will be improved as well. More flexibility in the system as it comes from one vendor and the software has been developed to be applicable for all departments in a company. Easier to predict the costs of buying ERP systems as it only comes from one vendor. Having integrated applications solutions with no complex interfaces. All of the data is stored in one central database.

Enterprise Resource Programming, or similar systems, have become a major part of a company’s tool set. Because of the fast pace of today’s society, the business environment has to struggle continuously in order to keep up. ERP enables companies to accomplish that by creating a “one stop shop” for all of the company’s vital information. This gives a business the ability to streamline the process of getting the item in question from the factory to the customer as quickly as possible.

In all facets of business, it is certain that a properly implemented ERP system will help save labor, resources, and overhead. The system will aid in discovering unneeded labor and misuse of the organization 's resources. It will help optimize the businesses ' processes. For instance, the human resources department is able to identify the necessary level of laabor to accommodate an unexpected change in customer demant as soon as a sales spike occurs. These types of decisions can be made on the spot and this can rid the organization of communication difficulties during times of crisis (ERPwire.com).

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - A process by which a company (often a manufacturer) manages and integrates the important parts of its business. An ERP management information system integrates areas such as planning, purchasing, inventory, sales, marketing, finance, human resources, etc. (Investopedia, 2015)

2 Hossain, L., Patrick, J. D., & Rashid, M. A., (2001). Enterprise Resource Planning: Global Opportunities &

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is one of the widely used software for managing and integrating the whole business. It gives a real time view of business and uses a database in the centre to manage and update the entire information flow in an organization. An ERP focuses on three main aspects as its name suggests they are: Enterprise, Resource and Planning. It concentrates on integrating all the departments in an organization which is considered to be the most difficult part in an ERP implementation process.

"Enterprise Resource Planning is an integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. ERP modules may be able to interface with an organization's own software with varying degrees of effort, and, depending on the software, ERP modules may be alterable via the vendor's proprietary tools as well as proprietary or standard programming languages" (pcmag.com). After researching companies who offer ERP solutions, I have decided to cover the following; SAP, IBM, AMS, and Oracle.

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

Enterprise Resource Planning is a system packaged business software system that allows an organisation to automate and integrate the majority of its business processes, share common data and practices across the entire organisation and produces and access information in a real time environment.

Information technologies are becoming an inseparable part of today’s business world.ERP systems is one such example as they have become an important instrument without which the majority of enterprises could no longer function(Pabedinskait,2010).Successfully implemented ERP systems generate organisational synergy, which provides a motivation for the improvement of particularly efficient processes necessary for the success of an organisation. ERP implementation systems have become more popular within the last 15 years. They are now a common way of implementing organisational changes today. Organisations that successfully employ ERP systems, such as software and industry processes have enormous benefits such as greater efficiency. Companies that have succeeded in their respective ERP implementation include Cisco, Tektronix and Harley Davidson Motor Company.

Some businesses are apprehensive about the time and costs involved in implementing an ERP system. That’s understandable, as traditional ERP software can be inflexible and take a significant amount of resources to implement.

The business world is characterized by heavy technology. Firms are relying on technology to handle numerous processes. It is for this reason that organizations are hunting for integrated systems that can combine all subsystems into a big one capable of sharing common database. Thus, enterprise resource planning (ERP) plays a great role here. The ERP system incorporates several information structures into one system. IT firms can have three main information systems namely manufacturing, human resource and finance. This software integrates data from these subsystems into a single one as well as enhancing data sharing. Any company intending to adopt the systems should consider whether or not it is increasing efficiency (McGaughey &

In order to compete in the industry with other competitors effectively, organisations must seek to achieve competitive advantages over them and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) can play an important part in helping organisations to gain and sustain competitive edge.