Free Flow Managing the Supply Chain.

To succeed in today's intensely competitive global market, companies have to be proactive in their use of information-management software if they expect to maintain and extend the competitive advantages they've worked so hard to create. As the speed at which business is conducted increases, savvy companies are using Internet-enabled enterprise resource planning (EPR) software to meet -- and exceed -- these goals.

ERP solutions speed the flow of transactions within and between enterprises, while setting the stage for a more integrated yet flexible supply chain. It embraces several disparate business activities, such as financials, sales, marketing and project scheduling. With a tightly integrated ERP solution, companies can manage their businesses globally, lower administrative costs, close books faster, improve cash management and make better long-term planning decisions. ERP enables decision-makers to better analyze and understand information relating to capacity utilization, procurement, time and expense analysis, customer profiles, marketing efficiency, training and cash forecasting.

In the past, financial applications were isolated from other lines of business. They performed their required functions effectively, but the valuable information they generated could not readily be shared. Similarly, financial decision-makers could not access information from non-financial sources. Enterprises were characterized by parochial systems that limited the flow of information from department to department.

Effective decision-making cannot be made in isolation. Knowledgeable choices require a complete, detailed and holistic view of corporate operations and market conditions. By integrating multiple business applications in a single database, ERP software dissolves the barriers between isolated lines of business, and builds the intellectual capital necessary for making and following through on the right choices.

An Internet-enabled ERP system helps organizations achieve goals that, in the past, were mutually exclusive. Organizations can aggregate financial, project, sales and manufacturing data organized through a robust and powerful database engine, while distributing fully integrated specialized applications to any Web-enabled computer. Remarkably, they can do this by leveraging existing desktop, server and network investments and lowering the total cost of application ownership.

Internet-enabled ERP software also improves relationships with suppliers, partners and customers by providing a platform for communication, co-operation and integration. Web-enabled ERP software will improve customer service, responsiveness, customer loyalty and help to identify where value can be added to products and services.

For the past decade, companies have moved from a traditional, concentrated structure to a flexible and geographically and organizationally distributed model. Fortunately, unlike previous generations of computing environments, the Internet enables companies to distribute access to their decision and record-keeping applications beyond the brick and mortar corporate walls. This is becoming increasingly important as the move to concentrate on core competencies and outsource extraneous services grows.

The speed at which business is being conducted is accelerating. Traditional planning cycles no longer meet needs, and customer lead times are now often as short or shorter than manufacturing/production lead times. New products, product revisions, projects and facilities have to react instantaneously to shifts in demand. Decisions need to be made sooner, transactions initiated earlier, and projects implemented faster.

This, in turn, requires seamless relationships between a company, its customers and its suppliers. Information of all kinds needs to be available to a cross-section of decision-makers within and outside the enterprise for rapid action. Decision-makers -- regardless of their particular department or location -- need information that is as broad as is it is focused. They also require business intelligence tools that allow them to analyze this data to make fast, informed decisions about internal and external relationships.

The free-flow of information and applications across and beyond the enterprise has largely been enabled through the rise of Internet standardization. Anyone familiar with the Internet knows that its success is derived from its ability to operate on any computer. Whatever the operating system or hardware platform, a Web page looks and acts the same. It has attained this cross-platform characteristic through the development of open standards, operating principles and languages.

For example, the Internet-oriented Java programming language is able to run on any system that can use an up-to-date Web browser. Consequently, any applications built with Java reach out to users on any system. This enables companies to distribute ERP applications to any authorized desktop using the Web browser as a universal interface.

As companies explore the potential of new global markets, a Web-enabled ERP solution ensures that financial services can be quickly scaled to meet the needs of the new infrastructure and facilities, without duplicating systems for each geography. In an ERP system, all the data and applications are stored in a common location, so adaptations can be made to support the legal and currency requirements of multiple jurisdictions. In addition, because ERP applications can be designed for access through the browser, there is no need for a proprietary interface, or 'hands-on' installation. Users of all kinds and locations can be granted specialized access to corporate resources, including self-registration, with little administrative effort.

An example of integrated Web-enabled applications at work is Rapid Transit Project 2000 (RTP 2000), which is charged with overseeing the ongoing expansion of the Vancouver area's SkyTrain light rapid transit system. "We were looking for a robust, reliable enterprise solution that could address our mission-critical lines of business, including financials, project management and business intelligence," says George Hofsink, implementation manager at RTP 2000. "An Internet-enabled ERP system has helped us create a single, seamless, scaleable environment in which all our business and project requirements are met."

An Internet-enabled solution provides RTP 2000 with the ability to offer third-party access to its planning system, which, in turn, enables intimate and controlled integration with suppliers. "Multiple suppliers from a variety of locations need access our system," Hofsink explains. "For example, Bombardier Inc. will manufacture our trains. It's essential to have a close link between our respective planning systems, despite any geographic divide, to ensure timely and coordinated delivery."

In the past, a similar secure enterprise-to-enterprise communication would have required expensive point-to-point leased lines. Each institutionalized relationship in a company's supply chain required its own point-to-point EDI (electronic data interchange) structure. This demanded an additional layer of application complexity that was necessary to translate between each company's closed proprietary software.

Managing several customer and supplier EDI systems is costly in terms of both labour and flexibility. Any redevelopment in one company's information architecture could have a ripple effect across the supply chain. The new generation of ERP that conforms to the Internet's commonly recognized standards eliminates this problem.

In the old environment, the investment in point-to-point systems created negative dependencies as moving to a new supplier meant abandoning significant investments in legacy systems. The Internet, however, creates an environment that radically enhances institutional flexibility and mobility. ERP applications that embrace Internet standards can extend quickly, in many cases using self-serve applications, to communicate and collaborate with new business partners without the high cost of point-to-point EDI.

By merging the Web's open standards with workflow technologies, self-service applications provide any authorized user direct access to predetermined elements of ERP systems. Self-service applications allow companies to extend commercial relations through the Web to its employees, partners and customers with little or no additional cost.

By distributing self-service business tools to employees, companies can facilitate streamlined internal processes and enhance operational efficiencies. Human resources, accounting, purchasing, project planning and scheduling are available for employees to make queries and initiate changes. They can sign up for training, submit expense reports, open purchase orders, and retrieve customer credit information. With everyone working on the same system, tasks that previously required shuffling paper between managers and departments are streamlined. With self-service applications, projects and procedures can be initiated faster and completed sooner.

The integration of line-of-business applications through the rise of the Internet is radically restructuring business functions. As this new, flexible environment evolves, artificial and counter-productive distinctions between applications and lines of business will dissolve. Information and knowledge will be shared between these business perspectives, enabling more informed and profitable decision-making.

Today, ERP systems are no longer the sole purview of large enterprises; a number of mid-market companies that could not afford the cost of building, designing and managing ERP solutions can now rent elements of ERP over the Web. Size is no longer a barrier to taking fall advantage of ERP.

Sonia Tellez ([e-mail]) is senior marketing manager, Applications, for Oracle Corporation Canada Inc. in Mississauga, Ont.