Integrated IT Structure: ERP Systems
14
4
Integrated IT Structure: ERP Systems
ERP is an abbreviation for Enterprise Resource Planning and denotes an integrated
IT-system for companies. Based on a common database available to all
departments within a firm, different modules like Finance, Marketing or Logistics
offer tailor-made interfaces for each department (Götz & Hesseler, 2007, p. 5).
The great advantage from using such an integrated system within a company’s
network derives from the fact that redundancies can be avoided by providing the
same data to all departments and business units. Usually ERP systems are
customized to the special needs of a company or industry and can be expanded by
adding new modules.
An efficient internal IT infrastructure is usually build-up on the following premises:
all departments within the company have always access to the same data
data must be able to be stored, altered and communicated across several
channels
data needs to be processed within a secure and reliable environment
redundancies should be avoided or minimized
the possibility to exchange data with other companies or customers must
exist
Most companies thus use an integrated IT system to fulfill these premises. The most
common one is the “Enterprise Resource Planning” (ERP) system (Harwood, 2003,
p. 29).
4.1
Design
ERP systems usually consist of a multi-layer structure. Due to their constitutive
characteristics, they comprise individual data sets, which are made accessible
through a database management system. Such systems are for example: Microsoft
SQL Server or Oracle Server (Gronau, 2004, pp. 9-10).
