BUS
620
Research Abstract One
“ERP Vendor Comparison and
Software Choices”
ERP Vendors
There are a number of companies, or software vendors who create and sell Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. A few of the largest vendors are: SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Great Plains and Macola. Each of these systems have their own unique flair and bells and whistles, but inherent in all of them is the interlaced functionality which enables the company and their user groups to input, process and report on transactions in an almost seamless approach from one function (accounting, purchasing, manufacturing, human resources, and payroll etc.) to another.
These ERP systems have revolutionized the way businesses conduct business. The business systems of the past operated mainly on large mainframe systems comprised of numerous families of software from different vendors that needed to have significant and generally extremely expansive interfacing programs just to operate. When an upgrade or expansion project was undertaken, the business process was at risk of shut down, or collapse because of the shear nature of the work that needed to take place to re-engineer the legacy system to accept the new programs or features. These days, most ERP software is run on large client/server systems which are much more upgrade and expansion friendly.
The new era of ERP system software has worked to
significantly reduce the down time associated with patching together numerous
system programs. Additionally, ERP
systems have helped to reduce business risk associated with deploying system
upgrades to the entire system, or through the need to add new business
functions. This is not to say that this
added functionality and reduction in overall business risk has not come without
great costs, or sufficient risk whether financial, operational or both.
ERP vendor comparisons appear to be somewhat hard to come by, at least without added costs from consulting firms who specializes in helping your businesses identify the software requirements, and or specific functionality needed. Additionally, companies such as Sap tend to focus in depth on the clients business re-engineering process in order to increase the odds that desired increases in client benefits would outweigh the cost of the total implementation. A quick browse on the Internet will unfold a plethora of consulting firms and related software packages designed to help narrow down the search for the perfect business solution package. I found that software to help in this selection process could range from around $500 up to the highest I found of $8,000.
It should also be noted that the major ERP vendors shed no light on what the cost of even their most basic software package costs. Many articles examined show that a major corporation could expect to incur expenditures between 1 million to 15million dollars and beyond in order to go from system inception, to system launch.