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`New Net technologies will only boost ERP'

Bharat Kumar

Recently in Goa

`Human knowledge has grown too vast for the human mind.'

- Will Durant in The story of Philosophy.

Chief Information Officers in India today probably cannot agree more with that statement. It looks like there are just too many options before them for every act of automation desired.

And, by the time a technology decision is taken and implementation is complete, the choice becomes redundant.

Obsolescence has always been the bane of the IT industry. But post-Y2K, `many' has become `too much'.

CIOs seem to be waiting to assimilate the possibilities of information technology before deciding on IT investments.

And it's taking them time to do that. Time that the ERP industry -- whose fortunes are on a decline for now -- is using to graduate to the era of e-business.

That's what came through in a chat that Business Line had at this year's QAD User conference with Mr James Markell, Strategic Business Manager, New Products Unit, QAD Inc, an ERP and e-business software vendor.

He says, ``Since the second half of 1999, the ERP industry has faced a slump. Y2k concerns fuelled the slump. But new technology and a stream of jargon are catching CIOs by surprise. E-business, XML and what-have-you.

``CIOs tell me that all of this is critical to their business but also say that they are not prepared to adopt such technology just yet. They are biding their time.''

As a result, it has been predicted that ERP growth will remain flat till 2004, he adds. Also, the availability of other emerging technologies -- such as datawarehousing, low-investment, low-risk, e-commerce technologies and the rest -- has further given ERP a run for its money.

Conceding this, he says, ``Sure. Technologies with shorter implementation time and quicker returns on investment have challenged ERP, even though ERP is a pre-requisite for most other solutions.

``But as long as manufacturing companies continue to exist, their focus will be the management of the supply chain. And if anything, the emergence of the Internet and technologies centred around it will only boost ERP, in whatever form the latter exists in companies.''

He adds: ``As a corollary, the longer it takes to implement an ERP system, the costlier it will become to integrate functions in an organisation.''

The company recently introduced eQ, a software that enables collaboration among manufacturers, their suppliers and their distributors.

``It is important for each manufacturer to take advantage of a transaction exchange without being dominated by other big players,'' he says.

``MFG-Pro, our ERP software, helps manufacturers streamline internal processes while eQ helps them connect to partners globally.''

On whether the concept of auctions will not take away the collaborative advantages of software such as eQ, Mr Markell says, ``I believe that auctions will not be typically used by big manufacturers. They may use the concept of reverse auctions as a start ing point to check the value of a commodity or utility in a market. But that's about it.''

Finally, quoting a figure for estimated e-commerce, without which all business presentations are incomplete, Mr Markell makes a point for eQ and its ilk: ``Internet commerce is estimated to touch $5.7 trillion. To reach that kind of figure, individuals t yping in orders on the Net and paying by credit cards cannot help.''

He adds: ``E-commerce will come from automated systems of organisations talking to those of other organisations. Collaborative software will automatically sense danger levels in inventory, send out purchase orders to suppliers and simultaneously talk to systems of distributors so as to replenish their inventory.''

In other words, soon, one process will drive multiple enterprises, a far cry from today, when one enterprise drives multiple processes.