ERP for SME - Small and Medium Enterprises - By: Nick Mutt

In the beginning ERP was considered out of reach by almost all the companies of SME sector and as a tool of fortune 500 companies who could spend huge sums of money on purchasing the software, installing robust IT infrastructure and could dedicate manpower, time and money for its implementation. But with the change in time and with rise of more and more ERP solution providing companies the upper market got very competitive, now to grow and bear the growing expenditures the software companies have developed marketing strategies to target mid and small size market. This has initiated change in the design and structure of present day ERP to suit to the needs of SME market.

As it is easily understandable that the benefits of ERP are more realistic and practical to SME than large companies, as large companies can invest money and manpower to find out an alternative way of doing tasks, such cushion is not with SME, the biggest disclaimer is the amount of money a mid size company have to invest to get the benefits of ERP. So the ERP solutions for SME need to be cost effective and easy to implement. The professional services which a large organization can avail a small or mid size company may not be able to. More cost effective ERP software with less complex implementation process is the most suitable option for SME.

Low cost of implementation alone cannot get ERP solution down the throat of SME market. Some of the mid size companies might be small in size and business, but they might be working in the market for quite some time. And it has been noted, in most of the cases, that such companies have number of different types of systems working simultaneously in one organization. When ERP is implemented all of those systems either need to be integrated with the ERP or the old data has to be converted according to the format and design required by the ERP to understand, for smooth and trouble free transition and working. This calls for a flexible architecture of ERP software which should be able to integrate with different software, platforms and operating systems.

Most of the SME would like to deploy ERP in a step by step process where they will switch over one module after another, this makes the process easier and less cumbersome. To target SME market companies have started offering ERP software in suite, which allows the buyer to purchase one application with complete functionality of a particular department of organization like SCM, CRM, Financial management etc and with smooth and easy integration facilities with other applications. Instead of buying whole ERP for the organization switching over in steps is more attractive for SME units.

Hosted ERP, cloud computing, SaaS models have been promoted by almost every ERP company and with a primary aim of attracting more clients from SME sector. These models take away most of the worries and deterrents of companies from SME market regarding ERP implementation and cost. The availability of top ERP solutions in such models has been the major factor that has played its role in making ERP popular in SME market.

About the Author

Read about ERP Selection for SME. Also know the ERP Software Benefits. Know Effects of ERP on SME.

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