 |
White Papers / Articles | |
|
Automating ERP: 5 Paths To Success |
|
| Tom Vogel takes a fresh perspective on using automation tools to fully exploit ERP systems. Read on and learn how your organization might benefit from automating your ERP processes. |
|
We all know that ERP systems are implemented to tie enterprise information together and make business processes smoother.
However, from an IT perspective, the reality is that making ERP applications talk to each other and perform as an integrated panacea
for the company is an unrealized dream for most. ERP applications can be complex, cumbersome, and often times just downright
expensive to implement and maintain. But there is hope for improvement in cost, performance, and functionality. In this column,
I'll describe 5 ways in which ERP environments can benefit from automation technology like Automation Anywhere. |
|
Turn the Rocky Road into a Cobblestone Path |
|
The 5 ERP implementation challenges that IT staff should be thinking about automating include:
- Initial deployment
- Application integration
- Day-to-day ERP tasks
- Reporting and communications
- Migration to new system releases
|
| |
All of these projects or phases (or whatever you want to call them) can be slowed to a standstill, hit with rising costs, or delayed
from a painful technical restriction, resulting in a rocky project that might involve:
- Construction of business process flow
- Time-consuming scripting
- Modification of legacy applications
- Coordination and collaboration efforts
- etc.
|
|
| Automating any of the projects can significantly reduce the time, energy, cost, and employee turnover. |
|
| 1. Make the Initial Deployment Less Costly |
Many ERP deployments are scheduled and budgeted for months or years at a cost of millions of dollars. Too often, these figures
balloon out of control because of technical snags and coordination problems. With automation software, these projects can experience significant reductions in time and budget. Complex data movement issues turn into routine scheduling of automated tasks.
Productivity gains can result in your more senior staff focusing on bigger-picture strategy. Everyone is happier. |
|
| 2. Application X: Meet Application Y |
Ah…to marry two or more ERP applications in a happy lovefest. How often do we arrive here without significant pain (and the feeling
that divorce is the only solution)? Here, Automation Anywhere is capable of making the pain go away. Whether you are integrating applications from the same vendor or different vendors, the capabilities of integration are endless. |
| |
Take, for example, a business process that requires pulling data from SAP Financials, inserting it into a web portal of another application, and then pulling and feeding the combined information into a PeopleSoft HR reporting tool. Wow. Using Automation Anywhere, this can happen relatively painlessly by using its ability to extract data from GUI interfaces and insert the data into other application GUIs,
Windows applications, or Web portals. |
|
| 3. Ease the Daily Grind |
Whereas data that rests inside ERP applications is not a problem, data that needs to be moved on a daily basis to other applications
(such as a spreadsheet or a database) can create scripting nightmares. Automate, and you're great. The more of these daily tasks that you automate, the more productive and less error-prone your team will be. And life is just better when management needs the information….which brings me to my next point… |
|
| 4. Reporting for the Masses |
ERP reporting is pretty straightforward, you say? How about when those reports need to be merged, emailed, and filed in a certain organized manner? Forums abound with questions about how to generate reports and email them. Fortunately, Automation Anywhere
can make sense of the reporting puzzle and help improve company communications and executive decision making. |
|
| 5. When the New Just Became Old |
ERP software is just like any other software—it gets updated and improved. That means we need to upgrade to new versions and
releases, leading to changes in business processes and data design. It can also mean that there is more pain involved. Front end automation can help in these migrations—both in data movement as well as sanity checks after the new system is up and running. In addition, workflow designs can be built with Automation Anywhere to model the processes before and after, and check the efficacy
of the process flow. |
|
| In Summary |
|
So, we know that automation software improves our ERP systems, and can improve our lives as IT professionals. It's a good time to
try new things with automation—the data in our world is increasing at amazing rates and customer-focused companies are increasingly trying to improve efficiencies with their ERP systems. ERP will be the next big beneficiary of advances in automation technology. Stay tuned ERP people…I wish you a smoother path. |
|
| About the Author |
|
| Tom Vogel has enjoyed over 20 years in the software industry, in various technical, marketing, and business development roles. At IBM corporation, Tom managed product launches for various successful database products, database tools, and ERP solutions on all platforms. Previously, Tom managed the marketing and communications for for a host of middleware software packages, such as OpenTV interactive set-top box software. Today, Tom is Director of Business Development/Marketing at Automation Anywhere, Inc., a rapidly growing company whose business process automation and testing automation products are catching on with Fortune 500 companies and ERP implementers worldwide. |
|
| (June 2011) |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
 |
| |
| |
PRODUCT INFORMATION: AUTOMATION ANYWHERE
Automation Anywhere is an intelligent automation software for business & IT tasks. No programming required. Features include state of the art drag and drop automation, remote deployment, Visualizer, Workflow designer, image recognition and much more.
Free trial available. Read more about this product at http://www.AutomationAnywhere.com or call our sales hotline +1-888-484-3535. |
|
| | |
|
|
