Cel mai deschis blog despre afaceri și tehnologie

I said, in an earlier post, that people at Gartner claimed that the ERP solutions will become mobile. At the base of this statement lies the fact that despite the global economic downturn, it is still something that organisations are willing to invest in: mobility.

With mobile devices becoming omnipresent, the companies can benefit from improved quality of service, greater productivity or deeper business relationships. Now, it is more important how a producer chooses to sell than what they sell. For the sales teams, to have immediate and real-time data on what’s going on with orders, customers and suppliers is critical. So, ERP mobility will be a dominant force from the shop floor to each sales call where quotes, orders and contracts deliver real-time order and pricing updates.

Therefore, beyond mobile devices already integrated with ERP solutions (handheld, pocket PC, etc.), the managers and executives are already pushing for service delivery on mobile devices like iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android etc. Why? Because the expectations are very high for having real-time updates on a series of benchmarks that the management team uses to manage their many businesses on mobile platforms. Plus, according also to Gartner, by 2015 the tablet market will be 479 million units and the PC market will be only just ahead at 535 million units. In other words, in three years the tablets alone are going to have effective parity with PCs. And, in most of the companies, the mobile devices will replace the traditional laptops, much heavier and more voluminous. Which will push ERP manufacturers to deliver those services including on iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, etc.

And, being able to mobilise ERP applications, the companies will achieve an important competitive advantage.

Business applications like ERP are undergoing many changes. The realities of cloud computing, the accessibility provided by mobile technologies and the impact of social media are all affecting the business application environment. Market research conducted by some of the most important companies in the field have shown which are the managers' expectations from ERP systems for 2012 and beyond. Here are some of the highly anticipated predictions for 2012:

Food producers must find ways to satisfy customers and operate profitably despite fluctuations in consumer demand, varying raw material variability and capacity constraints. And, above all, must comply to strict government and European Union regulations regarding the traceability process and products quality. That means the need of controlling the history of a food product, from raw material until the final product and its location after sale or distribution. And those EU regulations on products quality must be complied by any European food manufacturers, no matter what size the food company is. But are the Romanian food producers prepared to fulfill the EU regulations? Are they able to track the raw materials sources, the processing of those materials, and the products lots on batch?

At beginning of a new year, some of the most important BI research agencies – Forrester Research and Gartner - make a few predictions for business intelligence in 2012.