Complexity of integrations in Enterprise Resource Planning

Most of the customers presently have disparate applications on different technology platforms, built with different tools, and purchased from different vendors, and not working seamlessly. One of the key challenges of the IT managers is to make these Enterprise Resource Planning applications integrated well and work in tandem.
Enterprises have to not only relook process capabilities but also their technology infrastructure that helps them to get real-time information across their supply network.

Enterprise Resource Planning Software vendors have to look into solutions to embrace the concept of demand driven supply network (DDSN) and enable the enterprises to become more demand centric. Analysts indicate that half of all the companies do not have a clear visibility across their supply network, inspite of having IT systems as these systems are not properly integrated due to lack of proper Enterprise Resource Planning.

The major challenge to the ERP vendors is hence to provide seamless integrations between all their extended ERP applications, which can help enterprises become a demand-driven organisation. The next generation of enterprise applications will need to embrace better architectural capabilities to make the integrations more plug and play, rather than being tight point-to-point integrations.

Service-Oriented Architecture in Enterprise Resource Planning:
One of the key market trends is the technology transformation to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) which will have the largest effect on redefining the ERP market. As indicated by analysts, service-oriented architecture will transform Enterprise Resource Planning software from being an inhibitor to an enabler of business change, by 2015. SOA will shift revenue from packaged software to subscription services and from monolithic suites to composite applications.

SOA is an approach to designing, implementing, and deploying information systems via Enterprise Resource Planning such that the system is created from components implementing discrete business functions. These components called “services” can be distributed across geography, across enterprise, and can be reconfigured into new business process as needed.

The services are “loosely coupled” allowing for much more flexibility than older technologies with respect to re-using and re-combining the services to create new business functions both within and across organisation.

The future goal of most of the ERP vendors providing Enterprise Resource Planning
is to provide an enhanced value of the installed systems, by bringing in the real value proposition to the existing customers as well as to the new customer, by enhancing the product with additional features, both functional, technical and ones that are usable.

This article on Enterprise Resource Planning has been taken from the
times of india.
The author is Director, Development, SSA
Global India
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Enterprise Resource Planning,erp software,erp vendor, software,Enterprise Resource Planning.

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