Enterprise Resource Planning

Enterprise-Resource-Planning (ERP) is a term that encompasses business tasks, resources like capital, personel, company assets, information and communication technology, IT systems as readily available company services and demand for planning and control. It ensures efficient operational value-aggregating process and on-going optimal control for business and operational practices. Its main concern is to provide an integrated view of core business processes by use of databases kept by a database management system.

If the definition above still seems too vague, take a step back and think about all of the various processes that are essential to running a business, ranging from inventory to order management, accounting, human resources, customer relationship management (CRM) and beyond. At its most basic level, ERP software integrates these various functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information across the entire organization.

ERP is typically deployed in teh form of a software suite designed to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities, including:

product planning, purchase
manufacturing or service delivery
marketing and sales
inventory management
shipping and payment

The system used to integrate all these process share data across different departments, which provide said data, facilitating information flow between all business units, besides providing accurate ties to outside stakeholders.

Chart showing how ERP relates all business areas to each other. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ERP_Modules.png