What is ERP Software?

ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning (learn everything you need to know about an ERP system), and it originally stems from Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP), which in itself has its origins in the manufacturing industry. At its most fundamental level, ERP is integrated business management software used to maintain, control, and plan within organisations across a wide variety of industries. However, knowing this information on its own isn’t enough to understand what ERP software can potentially do for a modern organisation. One of the most central features of ERP software systems is a shared database that supports multiple functions used by the various business departments and units. For example, accounting staff and sales staff can rely on the same real-time information and create filters in order to isolate the most important data they each require at any given time.

To fully comprehend what ERP means for a business, one has to consider all of the various processes that are necessary to the smooth running of a business. So what does a business need to function on a day to day basis? One must consider core, day to day processes such as accounting, stock control, procurement, sales and marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), reporting, credit control, and other more specific business processes that vary from industry to industry.

ERP software can make huge efficiencies and improvements within any organization by:

• Integrating all aspects of your business using just one solution
• Enabling real-time information across the entire organisation
• Helping define essential business processes and monitoring them over time
• Enhancing productivity through the automation of key business processes
• Protecting critical business data and enabling the creation of well-defined roles and security access
• Enabling you to plan and make projections based on existing orders and forecasts
• Translating your data into actionable reports and business intelligence

With the above benefits, the value of ERP software in the modern competitive climate is clear. Using an ERP solution, the whole organisation has access to accurate real-time information that enables everyone to make quicker and better decisions. On top of that, ERP software helps to eliminate redundant systems and processes, dramatically lowering the total cost of conducting business.

ERP systems are available on a variety of hardware platforms and operating system environments, and are offering in flexible subscription alternatives such as Software as a Service (SaaS). For more information on our ERP solution and what it could do for your business, please see Herbst Enterprise.