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Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. The purpose of ERP is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders.

Short for enterprise resource planning, ERP is business management software that allows an organization to use a system of integrated applications to manage the business. ERP software integrates all facets of an operation, including development, manufacturing, sales and marketing.

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system provides an integrated suite of IT applications that support activities such as project management, human resource management, finance, procurement and other corporate core functions. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside an organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. Built on a centralized database and normally utilizing a common computing platform, ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and organization-wide system environment. One of the most important activities associated with the implementation of an ERP system is the opportunity to streamline and improve the operations of an organization through business process reengineering and the implementation of best practices and standards.

When you search for "ERP" on the web, the sheer amount of information that comes up can be overwhelming—not to mention a little confusing. Every website seems to have its own definition of ERP, and one ERP implementation can vary widely from the next. These differences, however, underscore the flexibility that can make ERP such a powerful business tool.

To get a deeper understanding of how ERP solutions can transform your business, it helps to get a better sense of what ERP actually is and how it works. Here's a brief introduction to ERP and why it seems like everyone's talking about it. ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning, but even its full name doesn't shed much light on what ERP is or what it does. For that, you need to take a step back and think about all of the various processes that are essential to running a business, including inventory and order management, accounting, human resources, customer relationship management (CRM), and beyond. At its most basic level, ERP software integrates these various functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information across the entire organization.

ERP simply stands for enterprise resource planning, and the latter is a business ideology, which main purpose is to help companies around the world to better plan their resources and use them more effectively. ERP solutions are the software products, which are developed according to this ideology. They belong to the group of integrated systems and their main purpose is to connect and synchronize all of the different departments and activities of an enterprise. This way the business turns into a well—oiled machine and can operate up to hundreds percent more effectively. These systems integrate all of the information in an organization — manufacturing, sales management, accounting, financial management, human resources and so on...

Enterprise resource planning software, or ERP, doesn’t live up to its acronym. Forget about planning—it doesn’t do much of that—and forget about resource, a throwaway term. But remember the enterprise part. This is ERP’s true ambition. It attempts to integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments’ particular needs.

That is a tall order, building a single software program that serves the needs of people in finance as well as it does the people in human resources and in the warehouse. Each of those departments typically has its own computer system optimized for the particular ways that the department does its work. But ERP combines them all together into a single, integrated software program that runs off a single database so that the various departments can more easily share information and communicate with each other.

In accounting, ERP is the acronym for enterprise resource planning. ERP could be described as a database software package that supports all of a business’s processes and operations including manufacturing, marketing, financial, human resources, and so on. In other words, the goal of ERP is to have one integrated system for the entire company.

The integration of all of a company’s information from all departments, processes, operations, etc. requires that an ERP system be very sophisticated. This in turn requires a company to commit considerable resources for planning, training, and implementing an ERP system.

Two of the suppliers or vendors of major ERP systems are SAP and Oracle.

What is ERP? Nowadays this is realy popular term, but not many people know exactly what it stands for. Some think that this is some kind of software, some think that this is a magic formula for doing business, but they are wrong. ERP is ideology and nothing more. There are softwares that function according to it, but they are not ERP. This acronym stands for a "Enterprise Resource Planning", how this could be a software, as it is a process?!

So here, in this site you can get a simple ERP definition, easy to comprehend for every one more that 10 years old. One of the most important things, that a company gets when erp system is implemented, is the best business practices. They are built in the erp solution and have to be applied, for a successful implementation. Sometimes this gives a mighty boost for the business.

Another great benefit of ERP is integration. One of the main purposes of these systems is to connect all departments in the enterprise and make them work in synchron. This wa dealers would always know what products there are in the company's warehouse and how much, the warehouse manager will always know what is planned to arrive from the supplier and so on... The most important, the manager of the business will always have a global look on the business processes...

Just another IT industry acronym? Not quite. ERP, or enterprise resource planning, to give it its full name, is the term used to describe the automation of core business functions, including production, accounting, distribution, supply chain and human resources. In other words, it's the use of technology to integrate the information from all your key business functions and smooth its flow around your organization.

Why should you be interested? Because, a well-implemented and appropriate ERP system can create significant efficiencies across your business, resulting in timely business information, better customer relationships, a more cost-effective supply chain, improved internal process and, ultimately, increased profitability.

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It integrates all data and processes of an organization into one single and centralized system. These systems comprise of many components of hardware and software, in order to achieve integration from various departments in the organization. It uses a single database to store data for various functions of the organization.

ERP is a term originally derived from MRP II (Manufacturing Resource Planning) that followed material requirements planning (MRP). MRP is typically handle the manufacturing process for company and ERP systems handle the logistics, sales and distribution, inventory, shipping, finance, and accounting along with manufacturing. Earlier this integrated system was useful for large organizations only to handle their wide resources, but nowadays use of ERP has changed and is extremely comprehensive, today it can refer to any type of company, small/medium/large. Enterprise Resource Planning is an industry term for the broad set of activities that helps to integrate all the functions of the organization such as manufacturing, supply chain management, financials, projects, human resources and customer relationship management.

What is an accurate ERP definition? Surprisingly it just a new term for something that has always been a part of business operations management. It is the process of determining how company resources — people, tools and equipment — are going to be utilized on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

ERP Tier	Definition	ERP Software
ERP Tier I	Large size companies	SAP ERP Oracle
ERP Tier II	Middle size companies	Microsoft Dynamics ABAS
ERP Tier III	Small size companies	Sage Software

SAP AG (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing) started operations in Germany in 1972. It is the world’s largest vendor of standard application software, the third largest software vendor in the world, and the market leader in enterprise applications software.

The most current version of R/3 utilizes client server technology and contains over 30,000 relational data tables that enable a company to link its business processes in a real-time environment. Each instance (installation) of SAP can be distinctively configured to fit the needs and requirements of customer operations (within limits).

• During this phase the team goes through initial planning and preparation for SAP project.

• The purpose of this phase is to achieve a common understanding of how the company intends to run SAP to support their business.

• The purpose of this phase is to implement all the business process requirements based on the Business Blueprint.

• The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation (including testing, end user training, system management, and cutover activities) to finalize your readiness to go live.

• The purpose of this phase is to move from a project-oriented, pre-production environment to live production operation.

• The primary goal of this phase is to ensure the operability of the solution.

An SAP Consultant is a professional who has the skills to speak to the managers of a company and help them creating the blueprint. For this the SAP Consultant has the business skills of the business area he/she is working with, and also masters this area on SAP.

For example, if this is SAP FI (accountancy) Consultant, this person is an expert on accountancy and payments, gained through experience or by the corresponding studies at the University.

Also this person knows SAP FI because has gained by the corresponding training, or the course on the SAP Partner Academy or similar.

Benefits: As this person knows about Accountancy he or she will understand the needs of the business and will bring it into reality.

SAP Consultants work with companies and help them develop hi-tech services that will allow the companies to manage their business more efficiently.

To become a SAP consultant you are required to obtain a certificate directly from SAP or their accredited study centers.

SAP software brings together a variety of elements of a business: accounting, human resources, customer relations, purchasing / inventory, and manufacturing / product development.

Pulling all these things together into computer software requires a massive amount of planning, investigation, and ultimately setting up the software.

They need to work with a wide range of people within the company and have a detailed knowledge of all aspects of the software.

Typically this is a job a consultant will do, as the skills are very specialized, highly paid, and not necessarily something the company will need full time once the software is set up.

For those who wished to know the role of a functinal consultant. Below is one view:

A functional consultant evaluates the demands in talking with the customer's representatives, transforms the essence into an abstract and algorithmic business model. Hence, he identifies the use cases and transforms them into logical and technical views.

Then the main task starts: customizing the respective business area and making sure the system reacts in the manner according to the constraints of the requested use case.

The consultant documents the settings and prepares proper guidelines that allow other consultants to do further changes or repairs with due efforts.

The consultant takes care that proper training is given to the users and that the system is usable, performing appropriately and the business flow is complete and correct.

During go live he assists the technical staff by testing the behaviour of the system.

After go live he guarantees that the procedures remain usable and consistent in real live situation and proposes enhancements.

The main duty of a consultant is to transfer external know-how to the client. It is not manpower that counts but intelligence, understanding of processes, a feeling for defects and general a common sense.

ABAP is one of the many application-specific fourth-generation languages (4GLs) first developed in the 1980s. It was originally the report language for SAP R/2, a platform that enabled large corporations to build mainframe business applications for materials management and financial and management accounting.

ABAP used to be an abbreviation of Allgemeiner BerichtsAufbereitungsProzessor, German for "generic report preparation processor", but was later renamed to the English Advanced Business Application Programming. ABAP was one of the first languages to include the concept of Logical Databases (LDBs), which provides a high level of abstraction from the basic database level(s).

The ABAP programming language was originally used by developers to develop the SAP R/3 platform. It was also intended to be used by SAP customers to enhance SAP applications - customers can develop custom reports and interfaces with ABAP programming. The language is fairly easy to learn[opinion] for programmers but it is not a tool for direct use by non-programmers. Knowledge of relational database design and preferably also of object-oriented concepts is necessary to create ABAP programs.

ABAP remains as the language for creating programs for the client-server R/3 system, which SAP first released in 1992. As computer hardware evolved through the 1990s, more and more of SAP's applications and systems were written in ABAP. By 2001, all but the most basic functions were written in ABAP. In 1999, SAP released an object-oriented extension to ABAP called ABAP Objects, along with R/3 release 4.6.

SAP's current development platform NetWeaver supports both ABAP and Java.