Page 190 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Planning and Managing IT Infrastructure

Notes task at hand. Identify a team leader with strong project management skills who can facilitate
team communication, address any issues that may arise, and keep the implementation on
schedule.
Keeping these best practices in mind will help you launch your deployment on the right
track and keep it there throughout the entire process. Researching the best ERP
implementation option for your business, building consensus around the effort, setting
realistic expectations, and giving your staff the support they need — these steps take more
time, but they result in a more effective ERP experience and a better-run business in the
long term.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:

6. The best practices in ERP lead to increase in quality and service, and reduction of cost and
response time.
7. Cloud-based implementations are not easier to deploy than on-site deployments.

8. Identifying a dedicated project leader and a team for your ERP implementation will not
ensure that the project goes smoothly.
9. A crucial part of implementing an ERP system is deciding the exact steps of how it will be
done and when.
10. Before starting any ERP implementation, make sure that your company has the staff
resources in place to see the project through to completion.

11.3 ERP Trends

Today, ERP is still evolving — adapting to developments in technology and the demands of the
market. Four important trends are shaping ERP’s continuing evolution: improvements in
integration and flexibility, extensions to e-business applications, a broader reach to new users,
and the adoption of Internet technologies.
Figure 11.1 illustrates four major developments and trends evolving in ERP applications. First,
the ERP software packages that were the mainstay of ERP implementations in the 1990s — and
were often criticised for their inflexibility—have gradually been modified into more flexible
products. Companies that installed ERP systems pressured software vendors to adopt more
open, flexible, standards-based software architectures. This makes the software easier to integrate
with other application programs of business users, as well as making it easier to make minor
modifications to suit a company’s business processes.

Example: SAP R/3 Enterprise, released in 2002 by SAP AG as a successor to earlier
versions of SAP R3 is an example. Other leading ERP vendors, including Oracle, PeopleSoft, and
J. D. Edwards, have also developed more flexible ERP products.
Web-enabling ERP software is a second development in the evolution of ERP. The growth of the
Internet and corporate intranets and extranets prompted software companies to use Internet
technologies to build Web interfaces and networking capabilities into ERP systems. These features
make ERP systems easier to use and connect to other internal applications, as well as the systems
of a company’s business partners. This Internet connectivity led to the development of inter-
enterprise ERP systems that provide Web-enabled links between key business systems (such as
inventory and production) of a company and its customers, suppliers, distributors and others.
These external links signalled a move toward the integration of internal-facing ERP applications

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