Business decision makers have revealed the key benefits of their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in the areas of finance, management information and compliance, as well as some barriers to its expansion.
In March 2011 Computing surveyed 150 users of ERP systems to discover how this software has benefited their organisations.
We began with the finance function, traditionally the main users of ERP. Seventy per cent of respondents stated that their ERP system enabled better financial reporting, while 52 per cent have realised better cash flow and liquidity.
The survey then turned to the rest of the business. For 63 per cent, their ERP means less duplication and time wasting across the board, while 61 per cent reported better alignment of cross-departmental processes. In IT, over half replied that ERP has cut costs associated with maintaining multiple software packages and storage of duplicate data.
Looking specifically at management information statistics, three-quarters reported that information is now available across their organisation as a whole rather than being held in discrete departmental silos. This is one of the single biggest benefits of ERP. The efficiencies to be gained from no longer having to consolidate multiple versions of "the truth" into a meaningful format are significant and wide ranging.
ERP software has also helped firms to achieve and maintain compliance with the relevant regulations, with 58 per cent seeing a role for ERP in compliance in the near future.
In summary, the top five benefits of ERP according to business users are as follows:
Information available across organisation as a whole rather than "multiple versions of the truth";
Improved financial reporting;
Less duplication and time wasting across the board;
Better aligned cross-departmental processes;
Enables regulatory compliance;
However, budgetary restrictions remain a key barrier for some. Others complained about a lack of flexibility, with processes having to change to fit the software rather than vice versa. Possibly as a result of such barriers, only one-third of the respondents described their ERP systems as full end-to-end deployments. The remainder ranged from a financial core module to systems covering a few, but not all, departments and functions.
If they wish to expand successfully from the enterprise to the mid-market arena, ERP vendors need to focus on cost and flexibility issues. The new generation of ERP, available on demand as a cloud service and extending to mobile devices may go some way to achieving this goal.
