At present open source technologies are provided at an affordable price if we compare them with ERP services. But ERP software is one of the most important components of a business company and it has become a must to implement ERP software in order to improve the business process. There is a great variety of ERP software as Open Source ERP, for example. It can be easy has a lot of great advantages. It can be downloaded from Internet and run in the any business environment in order to meet the business requirements without being necessary to pay for it.
ERP client server has been implemented by many medium to large sized companies in spite of the fact that this application is expensive enough. Because of its huge price most of the small and medium sized enterprises have never think to implement this software in their business system. Once the Open Source ERP has been launched on the market, things have changed considerably. Because Open Source ERP is able to meet the business needs of a small sized sector, many small and medium companies have started to make use of this software. More on, being a free application the demand for this application has increased considerably. All these ERP features determined more companies to test it in their business environment.
Obviously many companies spend large sums of money to procure the ERP software license, to get professional services as the software implementation and employees training. Using an Open Source ERP doesn’t require licenses or implementation. It can be merely downloaded from the Internet, installed in your business system and run. The download and installation process last only a few minutes and the open source ERP will start to work for you immediately.
Of course, ERP software has advantages and disadvantages as any other software.
One of the disadvantages is the fact that a company that uses Open Source ERP cannot take the advantages of the services offered by a vendor because the company manages all its business independently. In this case, if a simple error is not rectified immediately it can have disastrous effects and it can prove to be an expensive affair. More on, the company will not be offered any professional assistance so it will be forced to learn from its mistakes.
Open Source ERP technologies have some limits. For example, they cannot find any applicability in all the company activities and it is of no use when it comes about conventional practices. It is not recommended to implement the open source technology without modifying the way in which the old systems work.
Taking into account that this type of ERP is a free application and the clients don’t need to spend large sums of money for it, they don’t expect to find all the features we usually meet in the traditional ERP client server software.
But in spite of its limits Open Source ERP remains a great option for all those companies that consider that implementing and using this software can streamline their business at lower costs.