Most Enterprise Resource Planning professionals acknowledge that ERP systems first emerged in the manufacturing sector. Today, businesses in all markets rely on integrated solutions for human resources management, project management, and process management. The most effective ERP systems do more than organize the millions of lines of data generated by a typical mid-sized business every day.

In fact, the right solutions allow company leaders to make critical decisions that lead to bigger profits.

For example, Marvel Entertainment, the company behind familiar comic book characters like Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, relies on Oracle Accelerate solutions to keep track of complex licensing and merchandising agreements. In addition to streamlining the manufacturing and distribution processes with Marvel's partners, the integrated solution highlighted characters and properties that were undervalued. As a result, Marvel's executives now know where to get the best return on investment when spending time on complex deals.

In another case, T-Mobile deployed an Oracle Accelerate process management solution to discover which of its French customers were most likely to be lured away to other carriers. After integrating this new data into the company's existing CRM system, T-Mobile successfully reduced customer churn by making proactive offers to these high value accounts.

Web-Enabled ERP Tools Innovate Medium-Sized Businesses
Innovative new tools now allow ERP solutions to take root in a variety of smaller, more unusual businesses, as well. Web-enabled supply chain solutions combined with wireless Internet access allowed one small olive oil distributor to organize a group of small, independent farmers. By improving communications with their suppliers, the company prevents backlogs at its processing facility. As a result, the company has improved its margins by reducing waste and by cutting back on overtime during peak harvest seasons.