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A classical example of an implemented ERP is on the largest railway network in the world

"The Indian Railways"

Advantages of ERP :-

• Ease of use – The system of ERP is very user friendly. With the correct amount of training, it becomes easy for the employees to use the system.
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  Best business practices – The ERP system helps companies to do away with the erroneous ways of carrying out the different business functions and introduces business best practices. This further helps to provide better control and introduces standardized ways to execute business processes.
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  Ready-made elucidation for most of the problems – Most of the problems get resolved as the vendors who develop ERP software packages, take the best ideas from all their customers and incorporate them into their products.
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  Only customization required – ERP Systems are already developed to suit the general businesses. But as every company has a slightly different way of operating, only minor changes may be needed to customize the system to suit the company’s particular business requirements.
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  Information entered only once into the system – As all the departments and the functions in the organization are integrated and linked to one single database, data needs to be entered only once into the system. It can then, be accessed by different departments according to their needs. For example, before taking an order from a customer, the sales representative can have access to information regarding availability of inventory, credit rating of the customer, etc.
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  Easy enterprise wide information sharing – Once the information is entered into the single database, everyone in the organization has access to the information and sees the same computer screen.
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  Reduction in time required to complete tasks – As the different parts of the organization are connected with each other, people have faster access to information and require less time to do their tasks. This helps to improve the time and resources for decision-making.
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  Customer satisfaction – In the paper-based system, the order moved from basket to basket around the organization, and often caused delays, errors in processing due to repeated entries by the different department or got lost. With the ERP system, the order process moves quickly through the organization. This helps to get the orders to the customers faster and there is no in-basket time waiting time involved.
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  ROI earlier than the software developed in-house – Developing software in-house requires a great amount of investment, experienced professionals and tremendous amount of time. The payback from the in-house system takes an equally longer time. As ERP software packages are developed by vendors who have the required expertise, they are basically off the shelf packages that companies pick up that require minor customizations as per company requirements, and so they don’t involve an in-depth development like the in-house software. Hence the ROI is received faster from the ERP system