Evolving with enterprise applications
Companies in Bangladesh have been familiar with enterprise resource planning (ERP) for about two decades. ERP is business process management software that provides an organisation with a system of integrated applications to manage the business and automate functions. As companies began to embark on the journey towards implementing IT systems, ERP first entered as business jargon and later began to be adopted as a system.
With the world's large ERP system makers starting to focus on Bangladesh, businesses in Bangladesh have started developing in-depth awareness of their products. More importantly, companies in Bangladesh have started developing common minimum expectations from an ERP system. All IT applications are not enterprise applications. And all IT applications are not ERP. Business leaders today understand this difference and they are asking the right questions. This has also helped in maturing the expectations from such applications.
If we look at the leading companies of Bangladesh today, all of them have one enterprise application running. Some of them have also implemented more than one enterprise application to cater to their specialised needs. These companies are steadily learning to realise maximum benefits from these enterprise applications—either by transforming their business processes or by customising the systems to fit their existing business processes.
The experience of these companies for the first three to six months after the implementation has usually been painful. The implementation started with a lot of hype, which in turn led to many expectations. As the implementation neared completion, reality started to sink in. In theory, everybody appreciated the need for change management and the need to be trained. However, in reality, there was a lack of rigour and the stakeholders continued to have conflicting interests.
With the passage of time, employees developed a level of comfort with the use of enterprise applications to accomplish their tasks. At the same time, their efficiency improved. Some of the functions still continued to work in the old way till they received adequate attention from senior management.
Companies that had led change management successfully also started realising the benefits quickly. For example, the finance function of quite a few companies realised that they could complete their book closure every month.
Moreover, this could be accomplished with less effort and high accuracy. Progressive finance professionals did not delay highlighting these achievements to their leadership and the senior management appreciated that. Such developments led to the emergence of a new set of professionals who are skilled and experienced in managing their functions using enterprise applications.
Companies that are slow in realising the benefits are going to lose out not just on business benefits but also on talent. Professionals with experience in using enterprise applications are less likely to choose an employer with no enterprise application in place. We will also see the emergence of a group of leading professionals who will champion the implementation of enterprise applications. In fact, such instances can already be noted.
Global opportunities have also been instrumental in facilitating the quick adoption of enterprise applications. Many successful companies in Bangladesh are now expanding their operations overseas. Some of them are also attracting foreign investors.
Thus, there is a need for globally recognised enterprise applications for international regulatory reporting and investor reporting. Companies that have started living with an enterprise application are going to find themselves in an advantageous position while pursuing such global opportunities.
The leading companies in Bangladesh have been striding forward. Many of them have started adopting multiple enterprise applications. Many companies are busy building their business intelligence platforms after successful implementation of an ERP. A few of them have adopted a specialised technology solution for customer relationship management, information discovery and data analysis. These initiatives confirm that enterprises are realising benefits from their ERP implementation, and the senior management understands the role of enterprise applications in the growth of their organisations. With the emergence of more opportunities, there will be more such successful journeys.
The writer is an executive director at PwC. The views expressed here are personal.
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