Industry reports put corporate investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions at $90 billion last year, with $10 billion for ERP software and $80 billion for related software and services. As money for streamlining and automating corporate business processes continues to pour in, executives see first hand that the current number of users represents only about 5 percent of the total employee population. For the most part, ERP systems were designed to be used by so-called "power-users." This is usually a handful of trained people in the company proficient with the nuances of the ERP application or SQL and who are able to reach down into the rows and columns of databases for their analyses and reports. Is it surprising, then, that corporate executives want to expand the utility and benefits of their corporation's data resources to wider and wider communities of users?

We take it for granted that getting information into the hands of many more of your company's employees will support progress and help keep the business competitive. The trick is, can we make ERP systems easier to use so that more and more company users benefit? Equally important, can we do that without sending training costs exponentially higher?

Ideally, ERP modules would be suitable for desktops everywhere, well integrated with PC applications supporting users' everyday responsibilities. The good news is that major ERP vendors have initiatives to overcome the technical challenges for extending their solutions on to the PCs of less technically-capable users. ERP systems are basically large, complex databases with elaborate interfaces. They can be difficult to use because of their transactional basis for orchestrating business processes. Users must make queries in a specific, highly structured manner. Extending ERP to users beyond the select few requires making legacy data accessible through common, customizable applications such as Microsoft Office and even through the Internet. Two such examples that come to mind are actually object technology-based interfaces. SAP provides the R/3 Automation product and Baan offers the Baan Automation product, both introduced within the last year.

With little training, users of these applications can customize their interfaces by adding buttons or by adding bookmarks to their ERP browser tools. By allowing employees to view their ERP data through familiar applications, training time is dramatically reduced and employees are more productive. However, company users need more than simpler interfaces — they need to be able to use familiar applications to access underlying ERP data resources. Through menu add-ins and APIs, users can access ERP data through Microsoft Excel, for example. This makes it possible for them to enter and edit data in processes with which they are already comfortable, manipulating the data and making reports in ways that make sense to them, rather than being forced to use more complex data entry screens of conventional ERP systems. Using common tools vastly reduces expensive training costs and makes employees more productive in a reasonable period of time.

While "everyday ERP" is just getting started in major companies, users are already finding ways to improve productivity:

Internet access — Internet applications with an ERP back end allow users to navigate the ERP system in the same way they navigate through the Internet.

Everyday ERP is an infant market with enormous potential for many players. The major ERP vendors are seeing a decline in the numbers of new installations, yet they are experiencing a huge increase in the numbers of licenses they sell, as companies add more users to the system. ERP vendors know they need to sell to the desktop level to provide end users with simpler, more effective tools. At the same time, the desktop is the domain of PC software manufacturers, primarily Microsoft, and clearly these companies are not blind to the possibilities in the ERP market.

Over time, look for victors to emerge from the battle among providers to fully orchestrate the desktop and ERP applications. For the company users, the new crop of solutions will provide both a new suite of easy-to-use applications and some interesting new functionality.

Tom Richards has provided the information industry with complex systems and application development expertise for over 15 years. Previously with Texas Instruments and Formida Software, he is now providing independent consulting on software alliances, data connectivity and integration solutions.

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