According to Anthony, R. A, organizational processes fall into three levels - strategic planning, management control and operational control.
Even though much of ERP success has been in facilitating operational coordination across functional departments, successful implementation of
ERP systems benefit strategic planning and manegment control one way or other.
Help reduce operating costs
ERP software attempts to integrate business processes across departments onto a single enterprise-wide information system. The major benefits of ERP
are improved coordination across functinal departments and increased efficiencies of doing business. The immediate benefit from implementing ERP
systems we can expect is reduced operating costs, such as lower inventory control cost, lower production costs, lower marketing costs and lower help
desk support costs.
Facilitate Day-to-Day Management
The other benefits from implementing ERP systems is facilitation of day-to-day management . The implementations of ERP systems nurture
the establishment of backbone data warehouses. ERP systems offer better accessibility to data so that management can have up-to-the-minute access
to information for decision making and managerial control. ERP software helps track actual costs of activities and perform activity based costing.
Support Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning is "a deliberate set of steps that assess needs and resources; define a target audience and a set of goals and objectives; plan and
design coordinated strategies with evidence of success; logically connect these strategies to needs, assets, and desired outcomes; and measure and
evaluate the process and outcomes." (source) Part of ERP software systems
is designed to support resource planning portion of strategic planning. In reality, resource planning has been the weakest link in ERP practice due to
the complexity of strategic planning and lack of adequate integration with Decision Support Systems (DSS).
Related Topics
History and Evolution of ERP
ERP Systems - ERP Software, Business Processes, Users and Hardware
ERP Modules - Production Planning, Purchaing, Inventory Control, Sales, Marketing and HR
ERP Implementation Methodologies
Critical Successful Factors of ERP Implementation
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