ERP for Not Yet Techies

"Computer Careers: Is a Hot Skill -- Big Businesses Need Enterprise Resource Planning Software and High Tech Jobs"

by Richard Stooker, President Info Ring Press and author of Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career

ERP could be the total software package that big companies and your computer career need.

Basically, enterprise resource software, ERP, is intended to be total software solution packages for running large businesses. Large businesses do a lot of different things, and therefore have a lot of different software needs. They want to be able to buy one package that does everything from keep track of sales orders, to payroll, to manage inventory, to spit out their end of fiscal year tax return – and ERP is trying to fill that need.

To give you a better overall picture, here are the various modules of one brand of leading ERP software:

PP – Production Planning

MM – Materials Management

SD – Sales and Distribution

FI – Financial Accounting

CO -- Controlling

AM – Fixed Assets Management

PS – Project Systems

WF -- WorkFlow

IS – Industry Solutions

HR – Human Resources

PM -- Plant Maintenance

QM – Quality Management

The currently #1 ERP brand is SAP. It is closely followed by Peoplesoft, Baan and Oracle.

However, it is impossible for ERP software's original programmers to design software that covers the needs of every single large business.

Every business is different. They manufacture different products. Their employees have different titles. Their programmers have different computer jobs. Inventory control is quite different for cars than gasoline, for bushels of corn than software.

Therefore, every ERP package must be extensively adapted to each client.

And since businesses are not static, they change, the software will not stay the same for long. It must be tweaked, revised, cut and expanded to meet the ongoing needs of the business.

So, essentially, skills (and jobs) with it come in essentially two categories. Actually working with the software as it stands, and developing applications for your particular business.

The bad news is that all this ERP training is expensive.

At $10,000 to $20,000, most of it is paid for by companies training their employees in the new software packages. Employee training is in fact one of the largest expenses for a company purchasing ERP software. It’s not easy to find (or pay for) if you are not already in the loop.

The good news is that there are many books available to teach you ERP software for your computer career.

Of course, they cost $40-$50 or so depending on your online bookstore discount, but that’s a lot less than $10,000 to $20,000.

It also helps to have experience in as many of the above business areas as possible. Nobody can have extensive experience in all of them, of course, but the more overall business experience with a major company you can say you have, so you do at least know one end of an inventory control system from the other, the better off you are. Because not all the answers are going to be in the software.

Therefore, it would be to your advantage once you know it to look for work within the industry or industries in which you have your experience.

If you’ve been a junior banking executive and you apply for work with a toy manufacturer, they may doubt your ability to design software to meet their order tracking needs.

Once you acquire skill and some experience in ERP software, though, your computer career is a very marketable commodity for the right company or for becoming an independent consultant.

Next: SAP R/3

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