Changing Dimensions of ERP In The Internet Era 

I remember the days of growing up in the sixties and seventies in Calcutta when ‘Problems of Communism’ was read by all of us with as much interest as ‘The World without Borders’. A couple of decades later and after coming full circle the world really seems to be without borders, but HOW!

The ’80s and the early ’90s saw a very different philosophy gaining momentum. Activities were questioned and so were roles. ‘Value add’ meant more than taxes and started affecting the most sacrosanct of all departments. The focus had shifted from ‘product’ to ‘process’. Business process re-engineering, continuous process improvement, TQM, ‘kaizen’ became the new buzzwords and before we knew successful organizations all over the world changed their look and feel. Order fulfillment and not just sales management was critical.

It was the first time that the corporate organization identified the importance of the faceless customer as much as that of the audited books and returned profits. Michael Porter’s definition of even internal customers did wonders to our in-house relationships. We saw its effects in India too. 

ERP as we have known it to be played its role to the full all through this era. The who’s who in the Fortune 500 looked towards an integrated, single window, process driven application to ‘right size’, remove non-value added activities and respond to the customer better. The Indian organizations were not left behind. 

Just when the IT infrastructure was getting a little stable the right reports began appearing at the right time and the options of outsourcing a stable environment were looking promising. The net changed the world.



As economies globalize and move to the internet–natural markets and boundaries will disappear and this is true of India as well. The number of internet subscribers in India has already crossed 5,30,000 and is likely to go up to 13,00,000 by March 2001. “Great companies are defined by purpose, process and people” evinces Sumantra Ghosal’s, ‘The Individualized Corporation’. The traditional ERP had its first focus set on process. With the change of times and increasing competition ERP now has to support its users manage the purpose and people as well.

Look at how the lubricant market has changed in recent times. Days are not far away when all the oil majors in the country will be keen to know whether each one of us while buying fuel from their pumps care for their lubes as well. FMCG companies are not linking their salesman’s incentives with the distributor’s off take any more. Sales people these days take home more money only when the retailer picks up from the distributor. Secondary sales data is becoming key to organizational decision making and suddenly the on-line invoice data is not appealing any more. Solutions to these opportunities will build the ‘applications barriers to entry’ in the coming world. And more and more the net is becoming the medium for building these applications.

Going back to what Professor Ghosal said, the management of purpose and people would hold the key to success in future. The purpose of any product manufacturing organization is not to sell to its dealers but to its end consumers. If that organization now needs to manage that it must be able to track the channel through which sales in each segment and territory are reaching the final customer and then also gather the way the product behaved. Tracking of information about the product’s usage and customer’s behavior can be the only way to ‘stay on purpose’. 

Recently there has been an interesting news on Proctor and Gamble. P&G owner of more than 300 patents has now set itself new targets for innovation, in a market of hitherto little innovation. Ratio of new products, new products related expenditure per customer, average age of company patents, systems to manage research projects are thus becoming the critical areas of focus. 



The new net-based world reaffirms itself on the fundamentals of human civilization–‘knowledge’. As access to knowledge becomes all pervasive, knowledge specific to one’s field of operation becomes the key differentiator. It’s been sometime now before we started hearing about Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)’s and the role they can play in managing the acquisition and sharing of knowledge within an organization. 

The most scary part of the new focus on knowledge is that they rest on people. We hear about assets of organizations coming in everyday in the morning and leaving for home in the evening. Employee Satisfaction Survey is becoming the order of the day and we may soon see organizations trying to measure Employees Spouse’ Satisfaction as well. Managing these carriers of knowledge goes beyond the mandatory 5 days of training and all development need to tie in with the ‘Purpose’ and the ‘Process’ of the organisation.



Last but not the least, ERP started and will always remain as the integrated application backbone of any organisation. With new technologies in communication, user interface and pervasive computing ERP will appear that much easier, attractive and more pervasive. ERP started with materials and now are reaching people - employees and customers alike. I started by referring to the stock holders as the stake holders in the early days. ERP was meeting only their requirements then. ERP of tomorrow will meet the requirements of the other stakeholders.

See you all in the new world ......