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BI Is ERP

 Posted on October 31, 2016 by David Gillman

I am not the only one to say it – business intelligence is integral to enterprise resource planning. 

ERP does a great job of working with individual items, transaction, orders, and so on. Getting aggregate views is generally done in current generation ERP applications, but older versions usually lack the cool, built-in reporting features (often marketed as “analytics” by ERP vendors).

Due to the steep cost of an ERP upgrade or conversion, most small and midsize companies need to keep running their current ERP system and maximize their return on investment by surrounding the ERP system with reporting and analytics software. They may not be as slickly integrated, but third-party reporting products do a better job than hard-coded reports built into the ERP screens.

With custom or “homegrown” ERP software, a reporting solution can make or break a company. Obviously, there isn't an ERP vendor to turn to, and many of the developers who originally wrote the ERP system have probably left the company. Simply deciphering the data base to run reports and to create “analytics” in the ERP is much simpler than modifying the old custom code to do the same.

This tactic can put off the need (and expense) of installing a new ERP for many years.

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