With 2014 having just begun, it seems timely to take a look at what we can expect from enterprise resource planning (ERP) during the next 12 months. How will the landscape have changed by this time next year? There are plenty of well-known predictions — like in all sorts of industries, adoption of cloud is likely to increase and mobilization will come into its own. More generally, we’re going to see attitudes to innovations in ERP significantly impact the competitiveness of organizations, as those who resist change risk falling behind their competitors.
This year, customers will expect ERP solutions to provide them with improved integration between technology and better collaboration between different departments, and ERP software will be able to respond.
Improving Collaboration
Outside of work, employees are used to communicating via social networking platforms. ERP software will start to imitate these kinds of social websites with emphasis on ease of use. User-friendly social tools will be fully integrated into ERP so that collaboration between colleagues, customers and prospects is improved. Greater collaboration will mean that different departments are constantly feeding into each other and customers can be immediately updated of any issues, so that any hiccups in the supply chain can be solved straight away.
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