What 21st Century ERP Needs to Succeed

Today's ERP systems are remarkably similar to those ERP systems that took the corporate world by storm in the 1990s. The main goal of the applications back then, and now: Manage businesses' day-to-day operations and transactions, and make companies more efficient. To a large degree, ERP vendors have accomplished that task. Even most small and midsize companies today have their operations intertwined with software applications that help them manage their finances, logistics, inventory, HR and sales process. And that's fantastic. (See "Inside One of SAP's Smallest ERP Customer Success Stories" for more on enterprise vendors' invasion of the SMB space.) But, hey, ERP vendors: That's just not going to cut it in tomorrow's Web 2.0, collaborative and customer-driven world. That means you: Infor, Lawson Software, Microsoft, Oracle,... [read full story]