Organizations today confront new markets, new competition and increasing customer expectations. Thus today\'s organizations have to constantly re-engineer their business practices and procedures to be more and more responsive to customers and competition. In the 1990\'s Information technology and Business Process re-engineering, used in conjunction with each other, have emerged as important tools which give organizations the leading edge. The efficiency of an enterprise depends on the quick flow of information across the complete supply chain i.e. from the customer to manufacturers to supplier. ERP (Enterprise resource planning) systems, have been a major information technology that has been used by businesses today, in hopes of gaining a competitive advantage. But this advantage seems only plausible if the implementation is coupled with process re-engineering, as well.

ERP is an enterprise wide system that integrates primary business applications, including all areas and levels of an organization. All the applications in an ERP suite share a common set of data that is stored in a central database. It aims to serve as a backbone for your whole computing business, integrating key bu

There are many ways that an ERP system can help an organization if used right. First, an organization\'s operating costs can be reduced. An ERP system integrates all parts of an organization so that it has more control of its operation. Also, an ERP system increases the organization\'s time efficiency. Since all the parts are now connected and integrated with each other within an ERP system, people use less time to perform tasks. Moreover, people now have more and faster access to their information, which improves the time and resources for decision making. For now, having an ERP system means increased information availability for the organization that means that the organization can access information quickly and easily. Furthermore, organizations often have different types of software integrated within them. An ERP system consolidates all the software into a simple system. Software consolidation is another main advantage of an ERP system.

§ Helps to achieve competitive advantage by improving its business process.

§ More efficient cash collection, say, material reduction in delay in payments by customers.

The benefits accruing to any business enterprise on account of implementing are unlimited. According to the companies like NIKE, DHL, Tektronix, Fujitsu, Millipore, Sun Microsystems, following are some of the benefits they achieved by implementing ERP packages:

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