IN recent times, the ERP scenario in India is witnessing a rapid growth. A number of manufacturing firms, automotive, steel, oil, textile and pharmaceutical companies have already been implemented ERP solution thus making ERP dominating the overall picture in these organizations.
For the early adopters of ERP solution, Finance and Accounting, Sales and Distribution, Materials Management/Purchase, and Manufacturing are the most popular ERP modules implemented. In recent times Plant Maintenance, HR, Transportation and Service modules are also growing in popularity.
We find different industrial sectors like cement sector, power sector, and food sector are going for ERP solutions. The construction or project companies have also implemented different ERP solutions suitable to their needs.
Currently, the SME segment in India has been one of the most aggressive adopters of ERP software. In fact almost 60 per cent companies in the SME segment have already implemented ERP. This substantial increase in the penetration level in the SME segment is attributed to the introduction of low cost ERP solutions such as eresource ERP which also caters the country-specific localizations and availability of large pool of skilled functional and technical talents.
The primal objectives that the SMEs have for switching to ERP is to get aid in smooth inventory management, timely scheduling of production cycles and shipment of goods, managing human resources and online data communication.
According to estimates, the ERP market in India has witnessed a growth rate of 70 per cent in the last decade. As a result, the market has leapfrogged over the years to a tremendous volume in terms of monetary gains. There were many reports which underlined the tangible quantitative benefits accrued by Indian companies in post-ERP implementation era.
Most of the time these benefits are difficult to prove on statistical grounds as soft benefits like comfort in work life, maturity in planning, attitude changes, transparency, visibility etc are either practically impossible to measure or correlate such improvements to ERP implementation. Companies are supposed to set their objectives prior to implementation followed by measuring of the achievements after implementation, and only then should they conclude about the effects of ERP.
