Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - Organisation Growth

Subject Name : IT Computer Science

Essay- As you learned from your readings and exercises, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrates data across organizations. It couples key business processes and functions into one usable system for multiple personnel to utilize. Identify the goals of an ERP system and explain its value to the organization. Make sure to describe each ERP tier and how they relate to each other in supporting the goals of the overall ERP system.
Introduction
Once implemented and integrated into a company, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system becomes the cornerstone for any organization. Every transaction is processed through ERP after its successful implementation (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). Moreover, just the system installation does not guarantee successful implementation of ERP in any organization. But improvisations in the day to day working processes of the people who are engaged in the ERP system is a necessity for a successful implementation. Proper implementation of ERP systems helps in integrating and modernizing business processes and systems, in order to achieve valuable organizational goals. ERP system is often described as a single, but complete business solution which integrates all the business processes and sub-processes in one single system (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). The major goal of implementing ERP system in an organization is to ensure optimum utilization of resources with better internal and external collaboration and communication. Simplification of business processes and workflows with the help of a common platform for communication and collaboration within a department or across branches helps the organization to make quick responses needed for business growth (Fell, 2013). The quick decision making and resource optimization thus helps the organization to achieve its business goals efficiently and conveniently (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012).
The wide area of operation of the ERP system makes it relevant to every transaction in any organization. The business functions like inventory control, accounting, sales and production related to different stakeholders are supported by ERP (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). The implementation of ERP is selective, depending upon the technical feasibility and economic requirements of the organization. The data once entered, is used by the insiders and outsiders of the organization depending upon the needs and rules of the organization. These days the teams working for an organization are not limited to a particular organization and can comprise of employees of the partner organizations (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). Therefore, the use of ERP systems can help such organizations and employees in getting easy access to data that too in a quicker way. A Comprehensive range of enterprise business solutions and software applications helps an organization to easily respond to changing business variables. For example- the SAP modules provide assistance and platforms to look into sales and distribution, purchasing, supplier relationship management, product life cycle management, financial accounting, warehouse management, CRM, banking, human capital management, risk, governance and other such business needs (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). Each of these features is provided by a number of modules having different functionality. The production module is useful in optimizing and planning the manufacturing capacity, components, parts, and material resources using sales forecasting and historical production data (Fell, 2013). The inventory management module facilitates the maintenance of stocks in the warehouses of the organizations. The purchasing module helps in the smooth procurement of the required raw materials (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). This application or module may be integrated with supply chain management software or other business to business software. Marketing and sales software are often closely integrated with e-commerce website of the organization (Fell, 2013). Similarly, finance software module helps in gathering financial data and generate financial reports. Apart from these traditional modules, some vendors have started giving project management, business intelligence, self-service, and e-commerce software modules (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). This helps the organizations in saving a good amount of additional cost. Thus, all sorts of business transactions associated with an organization are achievable with the help of suitable ERP systems, that too with the less involvement of cost.
The modernization and integration of processes after implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning provides significant benefits to the organization. Easy access to the relevant information of various day to day operations like human resource management, operations, financials, and analytics, improves the efficiency and productivity of the employees by boosting the level of motivation and confidence in them. Delivering real-time personalized metrics and measurements also improves productivity and business insights of the employees. Quick and streamlined information flow among the employees makes the process efficient and helps the organization in achieving the goals easily (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). ERP system helps the organizations in getting deeper financial insights thereby, tightens the financial controls. The highly efficient human resource system attracts the best talent to the organization and thus, improves the efficiency of the organization with the contribution of an efficient human resource (Fell, 2013). It helps in managing human capital investments by analysis of workforce trends, business outcomes, and workforce planning. Automating the procurement and logistics execution helps the organizations in cost saving. The automation, integration and better collaboration of suppliers also reduce cost thus, enhancing the overall productivity by reducing the transportation cost and time through better collaboration. The reduction in time to introduce, and market a new product of any organization is done in less time with the help of an ERP system (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). The automation in product development and manufacturing ensures the quality of the product. ERP system reduces administrative cost with the help of easy automation of sales order management, it in return increases the number of sales orders processed with the help of internet based solutions as e-commerce. All these changes in the traditional practices leads to greater customer satisfaction deliverence and thereby, providing valuable benefits to the associated organization.
Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning system in an organization ensures resource optimization with enhanced internal and external communication and collaboration. Removing the complexities from the standard processes and workflows, makes the overall business operation streamlined and smooth. The ERP system architecture is systemized in tiers or layers, in order to manage the complexity of the overall oganizational system. The three-layer architecture is most pre-dominantly used nowadays, which includes applications, Web and database servers. This type of architecture is the most scalable, reliable and flexible (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). Using the simple hardware layering, one could scale the number of users by adding servers from 10 to 100. When the layering is done at both the hardware and software environments, then the scalability needs 20-fold instead of just 10-fold. So, the layering is merely a model that divides the hardware and the software in an information system. It often supports many tiers and is, therefore not limited to only three-tiers. Info.Net is an example of layered ERP architecture. The functional layers are generalized by this layer to allow new technological changes. A web-based user interface (UI) is provided by this architecture (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). A Java-enabled Web browser is required by the functional PC. Both intranet and internet should be connected to the PC, in order to use one of the servers of Info.Net. With the help of the Java Virtual Machine Interface layer, the user can establish a secure connection through a secure socket layer (SSL) connection. Then, with the help of the application software layer (ASL), the user can communicate with the server. The relationships with the both internal and external system and the structure of all organizational data are handled by Data tier. The data entry and its sharing with other components of the system is a part of the Application tier. The user ability to access and analyze information with the help of a Web browser is allowed by a Web-based self-service portal called Web tier. At the portal layer, integration is common but it is integrated only from the UI perspective and never from a process perspective. This sharing of content and customization develops experience, reportings are made more strategic and the overall efficiency of the organization thus improves (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). The three-tier application has various benefits over the traditional client-server applications. Its scalability allows easier architecture to change, add, and remove applications from the its architecture. The multiple levels of the three-tier architecture system makes it more reliable as compared to traditional client-server applications(Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). The three-tier architecture makes the application more flexible by separation of the business logic of an application from its presentation logic. An Overall organizational system is enhanced by the proper implementation of ERP system. Every corner associated with smooth functioning of the business gets synchronized with the help of an ERP system thereby, improving the communication process, as well as, information flow throughout the organization.
Successful implementation of an ERP system provides a foundation for both the technical and functional needs of the organization (Motiwalla and Thompson, 2012). It even helps in addressing future business challenges of an organization. Proper implementation of an ERP system addresses every corner of the organizational needs. The relationship among the complex information technology components could be thoroughly articulated by this system, including components like software, hardware, and complex data associated with company structures, people and business rules. Its wide area of application makes it relevant to modern global organizational structures. The productivity of employees, the human resource management, sales amp marketing, the logistics, the finances, the procurements et cetera is a part of an ERP system. Moreover, the applications and implementation of an ERP system make an organization well to do in each sphere if its operation. The involved tiers in an ERP system are namely Web tier, application tier, and data tier, helps an organization in gaining better scalability, reliability and flexibility over traditional client-server applications.

References
Fell, G. J. (2013). Decoding the IT value problem an executive guide for achieving optimal ROI on critical IT investments. Hoboken, NJ Wiley.
Motiwalla, L. amp Thompson, J. (2012). Enterprise Systems for Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall.