| IT/ERP/MRP consulting industry is currently under the | | | | similar business processes in Sales, Purchasing, |
| transformation. This process is usually happening and | | | | Inventory Control, Warehouse Management, |
| comes in parallel with new economic recovery and | | | | Logistics, Shipping & Receiving, Manufacturing, |
| change in the business paradigm. We'll try to appeal | | | | Accounting and Finance departments. When we talk |
| to historical excurse and give some hints on the | | | | about similarity - we are comparing it to the |
| future trends. In our case we work with such | | | | diversification of late 1990th and 2000th when a lot |
| products as Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, | | | | of new companies grew up and went public. The |
| CRM, Navision, Retail Management System (RMS) and | | | | market conditions of 1980th and early 1990th made it |
| cross integrations between them and non-Microsoft | | | | feasible to design the systems with rich functionality. |
| products: Oracle, Lotus Notes Domino, Unix & | | | | From the ERP side we would name: SAP, Oracle, |
| Java platforms: J2EE, EJB, Bea Weblogic, Websphere, | | | | PeopleSoft, JDEdwards. These systems cost several |
| etc. Let's look at the history and the current | | | | hundred thousand dollars in software licenses and the |
| processes:o Classical Business Consulting. It was | | | | implementation of the system requires comparable |
| flourishing back in 1950th and had two major schools | | | | budget.o Business Models Diversification 2000th. If |
| or directions. It was the time when large businesses | | | | you look at the dot-com boom of late 1990th - you |
| were trying to deal with the dilemma of growth and | | | | will see that these companies tried to invent their |
| efficiency of internal document workflow. If you | | | | own way of business processes to automate serving |
| remember - in that time computers didn't exist and | | | | their unique business offer to the potential clientele, |
| everything was recorded on the paper. Plus it was | | | | usually related to the new opportunities of internet |
| the need to probe and deploy psychological methods | | | | marketing & sales. In the case of these new |
| of coordinating headquarters personnel: sales, | | | | public (plus small & micro cap) rapidly growing |
| purchasing, finance and accounting departments to | | | | companies - business processes were in the turbulent |
| work in synch with one another under the condition | | | | change and the deployment of the system with rich |
| of paper document workflowo ERP System of | | | | functionality (usually with long implementation cycle) |
| 1960th. This was the time of mainframe and first | | | | would not be the option.o Customization & |
| ERP. If you look at the ERP application, it has GL, AP, | | | | Integration. As the alternative - new large and |
| AR modules - these are classical and could be | | | | midsize businesses have to deploy standard |
| tracked back to the 19th century. When you | | | | functionality ERP system (not rich functionality ERP) |
| automate Sales Order Processing or Purchase Order | | | | and consider it as a platform for customization, |
| Processing - this would be something new and each | | | | custom development, reporting and integration. |
| ERP vendor would be doing it as its own invention. | | | | These standard functionality systems are the ERP |
| ERP Systems implementation faced the challenge of | | | | applications of the middle market: Microsoft Great |
| user experience lack in those days - this is why we | | | | Plains, Navision, Axapta, Accpac, MAS90, etc. In our |
| see large number of flourishing ERP consulting firms in | | | | opinion - future business paradigm makes it non |
| late 1960th and 1970th.o ERP with rich functionality | | | | feasible to purchase high-end ERP system for midsize |
| 1980th & 1990th. Looking back to 1980th - the | | | | and even large corporation. |
| typical large and midsize corporation had relatively | | | | |