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Sme And It

Introduction:

Many large companies are outsourcing business processes to medium and small size business to cut the cost at the same time they are looking for more innovative peers in the market.

In large enterprises IT is used to support the business processes but for SMEs its still in developing stage (palvia,1996) . Any business system consists of many business processes.

Business Process:

According to Lewis and Nigel (2004) a business process is defined as set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. A set of processes forms a business system.

To increase the efficiency of the business processes companies prefer to computerise. To automate the Processes of company under one common software platform using the technology called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). It will help in providing solutions to problems that arise with massive companies.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) :

ERP is defined as an integrated computer based system that manages all internal and external resources of organization. ERP facilitates information flow between various departments dealing with business functions with uniform system environment (Bidgoli, H., 2004)

The History of ERP Evolution: The foundation for ERP started with the concept of inventory control in the 1960s. Based on traditional inventory control concepts such as reorder point system, customized software packages were designed to suit the requirements of manufacturing companies. In the 1970s the focus shifted to material requirement planning (MRP) systems to plan and control manufacturing. These systems played an important role in translating the master production schedule required to finish items by monitoring times for assembly, the sub-assemblies, components, raw materials planning, and procurement. The system launches order to control work- in -processes and raw material inventories through proper timing of order placement (Schroeder, 2003; Shankarnarayan...