Originally a manufacturing term, ERP quickly became established as the acronym for enterprise-wide software systems designed to consistently manage an organisation’s data. Since then there have been many ups and downs and a few heartaches but it is fair to say that if we look at the objectives of ERP, they still hold true.

Organisations still want their data and processes to operate in an integrated way; they still want consistency within those processes; and most importantly they want value from those systems, both in terms of reduced cost of operation and in terms of better information on which businesses can make informed decisions.

Having gone through a few iterations, ERP and enterprise solutions are now moving away from their rigid structure and developing a more flexible architectural approach based on service oriented architecture (SOA). This has been necessary, and long overdue, as organisations require increasing flexibility and responsiveness from their IT solutions.