The Link Between ERP and E-Business
While an ERP system brings together an organization's internal departments as well as external business partners into a large and integrated structure, it is a system that is mostly closed to other external systems. With the advent of Internet technologies and mobile communications, integrating ERP systems with such external entities will bring competitive advantages to businesses.
Together with e-business applications, ERP systems allow data and services to be shared with external systems in a controlled manner.
As an example case, it may be more advantageous in terms of time, as well as costs involved, for your clients to place their orders through the Internet. In such cases, you may need to expose the operations of certain departments within your organization to the outside world via the Internet, for example to provide such information as product data, prices, inventory levels and order status. For businesses that already have an ERP system in place, e-business integration will pose less of a challenge.
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