The global enterprise resource planning (ERP) market is projected to grow to $50.3 billion in 2015, according to Forrester Research. ERP is now the single largest enterprise application and the adoption is still growing. Tim Ernst, Partner and ERP Practice Group leader for BerganKDV has identified five operational trends that are driving growth:
- The recession resulted in a streamline of operational processes and a pursuit of increased efficiencies across the organization. Companies continue to seek solutions that support, build, and improve on those processes.
- Companies are pursing technical integration of organizational applications (sales, finance, inventory, production, distribution, service, etc) yet wish to reduce integration costs. More applications and data points results in more integration and administration costs. ERP solutions cover more areas of business, thus reducing data points.
- Organizations are performing advanced reporting across the entire business. Summary data no longer suffices. Leaders want robust reporting and key performance indicators down to a concise level for functional areas and employees within departments, cross-sections of products, specific business and customer activities, etc.
- Real-time data available to all resources is a growing expectation. Strategic business decisions can be made in a matter of hours. Customer decisions can be made in minutes. Current information needs to be available from the back office and warehouse through the sales rep and all the way to the customer.
- Technology advances, especially in relation to the cloud, are bringing enterprise class solutions to the mid and small business markets at a price point where business process advancements and efficiencies easily produce a favorable return on investment.
For additional information on ERP solutions for your organization, please contact Tim Ernst at 952-563-6869.
