What is Enterprise Resource Planning?
To put it lightly Enterprise Resource Planning is the implementation of technological solutions to facilitate the unified management and operation of an enterprise- including but not limited to HR, Inventory, Purchase, Operations, Cash, Raw materials, Accounts, Finances and shared databases intrapersonal to the company. The centralized digital management of the company thus is only possible by means of an Enterprise Resource management setup. It doesn’t necessarily mean there needs to be just one application, an entire ecosystem of applications with shared databases and live data and real-time updates on the business processes are what is close to the common form of an ERP implementation. In order to enter ERP as a career stream, the soundest choice is enrolling in an enterprise resource planning course.
The Need for Enterprise Resource Planning
Without a doubt starting a business is one of the most difficult endeavors that anyone can venture to undertake, yet there is one dreaded task that is even more difficult- possibly even on another plane of difficulty. It is running the business. Elon Musk once said about running a business ‘Operating a company is like eating broken glass and staring into the abyss’ which just about grasps the difficulty of managing the business. This is where Enterprise Resource Planning steps in- making the management easier with a lot of processes easier to keep up with in real-time with software solutions and continuous updates.
Education, Eligibility and Skills
In order to enroll in an Enterprise Resource Planning Course, a senior secondary school degree and a bachelor’s degree is required as this is a specialization. A minimum of 60% aggregate score is needed. The background or rather, the foundation in the bachelor’s course should preferably be from a business, finance, accounts, technology, and design or computer science. The courses are modular and focus on various stages of the implementation and even various types of implementation for a diverse range of businesses and enterprises- as this curtails a lot of technical work, particularly hardware and attached software- electronics engineering and computer science and engineering is very useful for pursuing a career in Enterprise resource planning.
The fees for the course ranges from one to seven lakh rupees with a duration varying from a month to even a year. Some of the most prominent features and skills of a reliable professional working in Enterprise Resource Planning are- Technology-specific knowledge, Good communication skills, Project management skills, Problem-solving ability, Leadership qualities for days, Team building and team management skills, Resourcefulness and research abilities, high pain tolerance and the ability for working with uncompromised efficiency in high-stress work environments given that deadlines run steep sometimes in this field and the maintenance and debugging aspect of the job is rather less-explored.
Career Prospects, Job Profiles and Salaries
Some major recruiters in the field of Enterprise Resource Planning are NetSuite ERP, Business Cloud Essentials, Sage Intacct, SYSPRO, Odoo, Oracle ERP Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics GP, SAP ERP, Epicor ERP, Brightpearl, Sage 100 ERP, FinancialForce ERP, Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management, Dolibarr, Deskera, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Awery Aviation ERP, WP ERP, Kechie ERP and Stafiz. Given the recent boom in entrepreneurship and the encouragement of growing new businesses and developing small industries in India- it is fairly reasonable to presume that landing a job in Enterprise Resource Planning will be comparatively lower in difficulty than some of the other contemporary fields.
The most prominent job profiles that can be landed in the field are – Director of ERP Development, ERP Application Analyst, SAP Team Lead, Director of SAP Business Analysis, ERP Consultant, ERP Operations Director, ERP Trainer, ERP Training Manager, SAP Project Manager, Senior Director of ERP Implementation, etc. at various different levels of experience and the average salaries offered at entry-level profiles like ERP developer are 3.5 to 4 LPA, mid-career salaries or at higher-paying profiles such as ERP Analyst or ERP Managers is 4.5 to 7 LPA and then there are some high paying jobs and late-career salaries that scale upwards to 7.5 and even 9 LPA. The current pandemic and the suffering economy have made employment somewhat difficult but within a couple of financial years, the industry should be back to normal.
