We have been hearing about ERPs and integrated applications for some almost two decades now. These concepts were really valued when we were working with different systems/applications for different functions within the same business. How times have changed? These days we take it for granted that any business application is integrated between different systems/functions.
Better organisations are thinking beyond the normal transaction capturing business applications. With the ubiquitous mail clients in all office cubicle people expect the business applications to work in the same way as the mail service is operating - inform selective people as per demand, get confirmation and agreements from required people for each/specific activities/plans. Share/spread information in different formats available in digital media
What it means is that a Sales Order creation in a system may be triggered as given - telephone call for enquiry which was captured in a call centre was forwarded to sales department, approved by credit department and sales control department. On saving of sales order this information is despatched to the customer care centre so that they can update the original prospective that made the sales enquiry. Once the prospect agrees to go ahead with the sale offer, the prospect is converted into a customer record in the company systems, logistics departments are informed about the sales need to be met and required planning/procurement/production activities are triggered. Once the delivery is completed by the outsourced courier/shipper service, company systems are updated with this information and the credit history of customer is updated
The underlying system is not a transaction capturing system like an ERP, but a system which has the capability to communicate, collaborate, and trigger transaction into a transaction capturing system (an ERP)
