What is ERP?

There have been standard answers to the question of what is ERP from past to present. Although we, as Workcube, approach the definition of ERP differently, let's first take a look at how it went in the literature.

ERP basically refers to the process of a company (mostly manufacturing enterprises) managing important components of its business together and in an integrated manner. The concept of ERP software, on the other hand, refers to software that integrates different processes such as planning, purchasing, stock, sales, marketing, finance, and human resources.                                                                              (Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/erp.asp) For this reason, when it is asked what is ERP, it is more possible to encounter answers that express software solutions that manage these processes rather than processes.

Although the concept of ERP has had definitions that express a narrow framework until today, as Workcube, since the first day, the question of what is ERP is “It is the fully integrated and 100% complete and real-time recording and control of all the information flowing in an institution and its ecosystem”. We gave the answer.

In the sources that provide information about ERP, it is emphasized that ERP is software that mostly concerns production companies. This is a wrong perception and approach. ERP solutions are solutions that can (should) be used in both manufacturing and service companies. Although the software sold under the name of "Commercial Package" in our country seems to target mostly service companies, they cannot offer the efficiency and benefit of an integrated ERP solution, since they are narrow-form software that can only manage accounting & finance, buying and selling, stock transactions.

In this respect, ERP should no longer be perceived as a sterile software that only manages workforce and financial resources. An old-generation classical ERP program, which starts the processes of businesses from the order and ends them on the invoice, is absolutely unable to respond to today's business world.

Workcube does not limit the concept of resource in the standard definition of ERP to finance, production, and human resources with the integrated functions and modules it offers. According to Workcube, an enterprise's customers, suppliers, dealers, project stakeholders, subcontractors, digital assets, physical assets, and even social media followers are all resources and should be managed holistically.

Finally, perhaps it would be more correct to give an answer to the question of what is ERP.

ERP software acts as the central nervous system of a business. Just as the sense organs in the human body send the senses they perceive to the brain, and the brain takes certain decisions and takes action with this data, here is an ERP program that covers all units and ecosystem of the business, where each employee in different units can manage their own operations, but data flows throughout the organization from start to finish. It is an information system in which the information created in a unit can be accessed and used efficiently by other units and it is transformed into reports that make it easier for managers to make predictions about the future and make decisions.