A REPORT ON RECENT DEVOLOPMENTS IN THE FIELD OF ERP

Abstract: Enterprise resource planning is a software system designed to integrate and automate all the activities in a firm. ERP is a software architecture that facilitates the flow of information among the different functions within an enterprise. Similarly, ERP facilitates information sharing across organizational units and geographical locations. The technology is changing in every moment which results in newer aspects in entire IT industry. These small but greater changes also effect on ERP and new developments are also come closer in ERP system Keywords: ERP, saas,Business intelligence,SCM,CRM

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrates core business areas such as manufacturing, distribution, financials and human resources. ERP is often implemented in companies together with process-oriented organization or Supply Chain Management (SCM). In order to manage the information-flow of such structures new IT-systems are generated known as ERP-Systems. Even though these applications have its own advantages over custom design software, they may face problems of uncertainty in acquisition and lots of hidden cost during the implementation process. Successful implementation of ERP must be managed as a program of wide-ranging organizational change initiatives and not as a software installation effort. These types of IT initiatives require change of the organizations social and economic systems, which then are got together with technology, people, task culture and structure. So, organizational fight to change is recognized as a significant success factor for ERP Implementation. . Enterprise resource plannings true ambition is to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments particular needs. Thus ERP attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments particular needs. ERP systems are IT systems which are meant to serve all the IT needs of a manufacturing company.

1.1 ENTERPRISE RESOURSE PLANNING

ERP is a software architecture that facilitates the flow of information among the different functions within an enterprise. Similarly, ERP facilitates information sharing across organizational units and geographical locations. It enables decision-makers to have an enterprise-wide view of the information they need in a timely, reliable and consistent fashion. ERP provides the backbone for an enterprise-wide information system. At the core of this enterprise software is a central database which draws data from and feeds data into modular applications that operate on a common computing platform. In the 1960s, the key goal of an ERP system was inventory control. Manufacturers assumed consumers would continue their buying patterns and aimed to keep enough inventory on hand to meet demand. The sophistication of resource planning grew with the affordability and feasibility of the computer. In the sixties, computers were large, hot, noisy machines that occupied entire rooms, but by the seventies, average manufacturing companies could finally afford them. The innovation computers allowed caused management to review traditional product cycles and resource allocation. Materials requirement planning (MRP) computer systems were developed to promote having the right amount of materials when needed. First developed by IBM and J I Case, a US tractor maker, MRP promised to automatically plan, build, and purchase requirements based on the finished products, the current and allocated inventory, and expected arrivals. Master production schedule (MPS) was built to monitor the finished goods. Naturally data from MPS fed into the MRP, which contained phased, net requirements for planning the procurement of sub-assembly components, raw materials, and ingredients. MRP gave planners more control; allowing them to be proactive and use time phased orders, rather than reacting only when delays occurred. However, because of the limitations of computers at the time, the software could handle only limited variables. There was no way to see how a late part, for example, would impact overall production. The general assumption was that delays in the system would mean the customer would receive the product late. Also, backward scheduling, where the start date was calculated backwards from the desired completion date, had to be employed to minimize inventory and still meet the customers delivery date. Determining the quantity of parts needed to complete the order, however, was not enough. Companies needed to create capacity plans based on materials, equipment, and priorities to improve efficiency. Thus capacity requirements planning (CPR) emerged. Unfortunately, again due to the limited capabilities of computers, variables such as idle time, maintenance, and labor could not be fitted into the CPR equation. Thus each work center was assumed to have an infinite capacitya problem that still plagues manufacturers today. Scheduling and planning still remained imprecise. As a result, the need to factor in other resources became apparent. This need moved beyond the shop floor. Keeping financial tabs on the coming and going of inventory, the labor and overhead involved, and the revenue generated from the delivery was also necessary. Manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) attempted to integrate business planning, sales, support, and other functions together so they could work in concert.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an enterprise-wide information system designed to coordinate all the resources, information, and activities needed to complete business processes such as order fulfillment or billing. Many firms rely on ERP systems to implement business processes and integrate financial data across their value chains. This reliance increases the importance of ERP system security in protection of a firm's information assets. In recent years, the audit of ERP security has gained importance and begun receiving an increasing percentage of firms' audit budgets. However, the audit of ERP security remains a complex, lengthy and costly task due to a confluence of factors. ERP systems are inherently complex systems spanning many functional areas and processes along a firm's value chain. They are designed to provide flexible solutions to business problems. The sheer number of possibilities available for configuring an ERP system implies many potential security configurations. However, ERP systems pay little attention to potential conflicts and problems in those security configurations. Deployment and implementation of ERP systems also pay little attention to security implications, as the main purpose is to solve business problems within time and budget. In post implementation stages, auditors have access to rudimentary ERP tools and capabilities for auditing security configurations. There are also shortages of staff members trained in the ERP security. 1.2 ERP ADVANTAGES Installing an ERP system has many advantages - both direct and indirect. The direct advantages include improved efficiency information integration for better decision-making, faster response time to customer queries, etc. The indirect benefits include better corporate image, improved customer goodwill, customer satisfaction and so on. Some of the benefits are quantitative (tangible) while others are non-quantitative (intangible). Tangible benefits are those measured in monetary terms and intangible benefits cannot be measured in monetary terms but they do have a very significant business impact. 2.0 NEW TRENDS IN ERP MARKET Enterprise Resource Planning is being implemented by most of the organizations to streamline its business processes. ERP enables smooth flow of information between the functional departments in the organization. The strengths of an ERP are security, high integrity, scalability, controlling, tracking and monitoring. ERP system has evolved from earlier times and it continues to evolve and address new topics in the market. The latest trends in ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning are many. It calls for constant upgrades and modifications to keep up with the times. Some of the issues to be dealt with in the latest trends in ERP are as follows. 1. Expenditure: Implementation of the ERP system requires quite some expenditure. The organization should be able to invest heavily to implement ERP due to which it keeps the medium and small scale companies away. One of the latest trends in ERP will be to reduce this cost to the minimum level so as to able the medium or small sized companies to invest in ERP implementation. These companies can also realize the benefits of ERP if they are able to afford the implementation process.

2. Time Duration: The time period required for the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning system is fairly long as it can take anywhere from six months to two years to complete. The latest trend in ERP is to reduce this time taken for the implementation process. This will reduce the man hours lost during the implementation phase and attract more companies to implement the ERP. 3. Need based Application: The companies are looking for more of the need based applications instead of having to buy the entire ERP software package. As some of the applications provided are not useful to the company, they are looking for purchasing only the applications needed. 4. Latest Technologies: Web enabled technology aids in making the enterprise operations to go online. One can access the needed data from any part of the world and easily. This latest trend in ERP makes it more efficient. Wireless ERP has made it possible to share the data through internet and other devices making it easy for people to access it. Open Source ERP aids in doing away with the problem of paying the license fees during installation and during every modification process. 3.0 DEVOLOPMENTS IN ERP When new technologies in IT electronics arise it also effects on ERP by improving new features or giving a new face to the entire ERP system. Present driving of ERP is in a very fastest way its all because of the innovative technologies which includes, 3.1

Open Source
The use of Open Source Technology will continue to increase except for ERP Applications.. Open Source technology really doesnt have a large play in regards to ERP. SaaS and Cloud are more relevant and the trend is more towards these uses than it is towards Open Source. Open source brings an alternative which addresses many of the key problems of both custom and commercial enterprise software. It begins by offering the user a freely available code base as a starting point. The user can try it for free to see if it meets his needs. There is no risk of upfront licensing fees for software that may not work. If no modifications are required, open source software can be implemented with the same rapid time-to-market as commercial packages. If customizations are required, the user has a head start with an existing code base. Furthermore, he can leverage the expertise of both in-house and open source community developers. An open source project brings with it the domain knowledge and business requirements of many contributing organizations, significantly reducing the specification risk typical of custom software. Open source communities also offer user-developers collaborative help in developing and debugging of his software. The net result is better software in less time.

3.2

ERP and Cloud Computing ERP systems are integrated software packages with a common database that support business processes in companies.

When using IaaS for the operation of an ERP system the user company rents the computing resources from a cloud service provider. In this setting the user company can still freely choose the ERP vendor of the ERP system and buy the licenses for the software. The market already indicates that this will be a viable operations model and ERP vendors (or implementation partners) and cloud service providers are likely to form alliances offering the user company a combined service. Vertical integration happens when the ERP vendor offers IaaS themselves and become a cloud service provider. The second level of the cloud model is not really suited for the provision of an ERP system. Platform services provide resources in a pre-defined software environment that are attractive for software development, testing, or the distribution of software but not for the actual operation of an ERP system. In the Software-as-a-Service model the ERP system is provided by the cloud service provider. The roles of cloud service provider and ERP vendor are merged in this setting (vertical integration). ERP systems are critical to successful businesses because they integrate, automate, and create processes that capture how the business works. It is therefore important to ensure the data is correct and that there is adequate computing resources and bandwidth to provide timely results. An ideal environment would have the company concentrating on the data and off-loading the infrastructure to a cloud provider. Another topic is business diversification. If a company is highly diversified and is active in various different industries it might turn out that a SaaS cloud solution that offers the needed ERP functionality on an on-demand basis over the Internet is simply not available. This makes sense, as the nature of Cloud Computing is to optimize, standardize, and reduce costs, rather than offer process integration and diversification that is typical in ERP environments. Technically Cloud ERP is simple to deploy, organization need not to bear additional server and other dependent costs. It is also easy and quick to implement an ERP to a business organization. On the other hand, traditional ERP experience a challenge to deploying and maintenance. Traditional ERP is very much controllable by the business organizations, because it is under their supervision. Again cloud ERP controlling depends on the support of the vendor. Vendor can ensure the control of ERP on be half of business organizations. Traditional ERP has an easy accessibility both technically and user prospect. It does not depends on internet rather intranet. Alternatively, cloud ERP depends on internet. So if the internet bandwidth is low or its technically departed then support cloud ERP is in trouble 3.3 ERP and Supply Chain Traditional ERP systems were concerned with automating processes and connecting disparate information systems within a business enterprise. But during the late 1990s, an increasing number of businesses turned their focus outward, toward collaboration and forging technological links to other companies in the supply chain. "Increasingly, manufacturers in developed countries are becoming part of the design and production line of their customers," Richard Adhikari wrote in Industry Week. "Tight scheduling requires automating the supply chain and enterprise resource planning functions and implementing electronic communications links." ERP vendors have responded to this trend by integrating ERP systems with other types of applications, such as e-commerce, and even with the computer networks of suppliers and customers. These interconnected ERP systems are known as extended enterprise solutions.

Sales of extensions to traditional ERP systems increased by 92 percent in 1999, and were expected to continue growing by over 50 percent annually through 2004, according to a survey by AMR Research reported in Manufacturing Systems. In the meantime, sales of core ERP systems were expected to stagnate. These core systems, which accounted for 90 percent of ERP vendors' revenues in 1999, were expected to make up only 57 percent of the market by 2004. "In today's business climate, manufacturers realize that true value comes from collaboration rather than trying to further streamline business processes," analyst Simon Bragg told Jim Fulcher in Manufacturing Systems. "For example, to get MRP [material requirements planning] to really work, a manufacturer needs decent forecast information. The best way to improve forecast accuracy is to work closely with customers and suppliers. 3.4 ERP and CRM Risk-averse companies interested on operational effectiveness through the value chain are the most likely to select a CRM solution powered by their incumbent ERP vendor. These organizations will find ERP vendors CRM solutions valuable not only because they tackle (or claim to tackle) those companies main driver of competition (efficiency), but also because ERP vendors are a safe alternative at a potential lower cost. When properly integrated, ERP and CRM technologies can provide an infrastructure that enables operational effectiveness. Obviously, ERP vendors claim to offer the best integration among their own front- and back-office technologies, and therefore, the highest efficiency through the value chain. Organizations can leverage the CRM ERP integration to the enhancement of operational effectiveness. Additionally, the tight integration provides a consistent view of customer and back-office information for theoretically- anybody who needs it, empowering the decision making across the enterprise. 3.5 ERP and Business Process Re-engineering BPR is often used as the reason to move from legacy systems to an integrated ERP. To fully utilize ERP, the BPR needs to be incorporated into the ERP implementation, scope and plan and continually measured to understand the effectiveness of new process. Reengineering is a business process or set of process that essentially dismantled the existing process into individual activities and puts them back together in a new set of business flows.BPR with an ERP implementation will require crossing organizational boundaries and requires much more extensive change management process.BPR has equated to down sizing, new technology and quality therefore increasing anxiety of staff both involved and not involved in an ERP implementation. 3.6 ERP and Business Intelligence In this highly competitive and volatile economic environment, it is essential to be able to improve operational efficiency but at the same time be able to reduce costs. For this more and more organizations turn to either ERP or BI. But a combination of both would be the ideal solution.

Not only do businesses operate at an accelerated pace today, forcing the need for speed in decision-making, but decision-makers are also forced to deal with an increasing amount of data. Never have we been inundated with more data sources, both unstructured (via the news, the web, and other sources) and structured data in enterprise applications, with data from ERP squarely at the hub. In spite of all the data that resides in ERP and other enterprise applications, executives, line managers, and business analysts still rely heavily on spreadsheets for business intelligence. Today almost every ERP solution and many other enterprise applications as well, have the ability to export data to spreadsheets. There is an inherent risk in providing this capability, populating a familiar tool with enterprise level data. Best-in-Class companies make sure that in extracting data, the spreadsheet doesn't take on a life of its own apart from the enterprise application. There is a tradeoff between being able to access and work with the data offline, and making sure that it always reflects the most recent version (which requires that the user remain connected). In addition to being an effective reporting mechanism, spreadsheets can be a collaboration tool used to share data across applications, companies, or partners, and therefore a source of data and input. The trick is to import the data from the spreadsheet through the same controls and input mechanisms of the enterprise application, making sure to provide all the same data checks that ensure security and data integrity. An alternative is making the enterprise application itself look and feel like a spreadsheet, thereby supplying the same comfort level without adding risk and opening the door to exploration beyond those adept at writing macros, creating pivot tables and other advanced spreadsheet manipulations. Of course, this requires the BI tools to be embedded within the application and demands innovation from your ERP solution provider, but it relieves the burden on the end-user. 3.7 ERP and SaaS SaaS solutions first became widely accepted within the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software market, however, in recent years the growth of SaaS Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software systems is accelerating and analysts predict continued growth of SaaS ERP systems through at least 2012. SaaS ERP applications have matured to the point where ERP as a service is a strong consideration for many companies looking to upgrade their ERP applications. For most companies, the hosted delivery model requires no initial cash outlay for IT resources, a faster software implementation, on-demand scalability, and improved ROI. These factors collectively create a material reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) and acceleration of time-tomarket benefits realization.

4.0 CONCLUSION Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrates core business areas such as manufacturing, distribution, financials and human resources. ERP is often implemented in companies together with process-oriented organization or Supply Chain Management (SCM). In order to manage the information-flow of such structures new IT-systems are generated known as ERP-Systems. IT-systems of this kind allow managers from all departments to look vertically and horizontally across the organization to see what others are accomplishing or not. It attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different department's particular needs. ERP-systems also implement and automate business processes, putting

them into a useful format that is standardized across the corporation and between their suppliers and customers. ERP-systems capture data about historical activity, current operations and future plans and organize it into information people can use to help develop business strategies.

5.0 REFERENCES

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

Anonymous, http://opensourceerpguru.com/ downloaded on 14.04.2012 Anonymous, http://www.opentaps.org/about-opentaps/why-open-source-erp downloaded on 14.04.2012 Anonymous http://www.erpfacts.com/latest-trends-in-erp-software.htm downloaded on 14.04.2012 Vernith Brooks, 2010 .http://blogs.dlt.com/top-10-trends-erp-2010-part/downloaded on 14.04.2012. Anonymous, 2010 http://www.erpfacts.com/latest-trends-in-erp-software.htm downloaded on 14.04.2012 Anonymous, 2008 http://www.systems-erp.com/?id_razdel=1109 downloaded on 14.04.2012. Anonymous,2003,Different ERP modules, http://www.roseindia.net/services/different-ERP modules.html, downloaded on 01.04.2012. Anonymous,http://www.theinfoindia.com/erp-applications.html downloaded on 13.04.2012 Anonymous,,http://blogs.dlt.com/top-10-trends-erp-2010-part/ downloaded on 14.04.2012 Anonymous,Ten Trends In ERP http://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/erp/the-top-10-trends-in-erp2.html downloaded on 13/4/2012 Anonymous, MARKET TRENDS IN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/bpx/index?rid=/webcontent/uuid/80cb70ea-8a61-2b10-0b85a105b87e042a downloaded on 13/4/2012 Anonymous,2012, What is ERP?, http://www.tech-faq.com/erp.shtml downloaded on 01.04.2012. Anonymous,2012, CRITICAL ISSUES AFFECTING AN ERP IMPLEMENTATION, http://carl.sandiego.edu/gba573/critical_issues_affecting_an_erp.htm, downl oaded on 01.04.2012. Turban et al. (2008). Information Technology for Management, Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy. Massachusetts: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 300343. ISBN 978-0-471-78712-9

15. Anonymous, http://toostep.com/insight/what-are-latest-trends-in-erp downloaded on 14.04.2012 16. Anonymous, 2007, http://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2011/12/top-erp-trends-for-2012/ downloaded on 14.04.2012