OpenERP - Why you should select it ?

Bista Solutions Inc. - Open Source Applications

 OpenERP - What is there to use it?

 In implementation of any ERP for any organisation there are basic cost involved apart from capital cost such as cost of the software, customization etc. there are other outgoings which is equally important. While taking a review from a Project lead who was implementing "SAP R3" for a gulf Project he told me that " There are many organisation who have to face failures in implementation of ERP projects" which means the risk and integration cost are the important barriers to all the positive you gains from such system. That’s the reason today, few SME's (Small and Medium Enterprises) use ERP. 

Apart from the same larger ERP players such as SAP, Oracle &; Microsoft haven’t been able to reconcile the power and comprehensive cover of an ERP system with the ease and flexibility wanted by the users. But this is exactly what small and medium enterprises are looking for. Henceforth because of its modularity, collaborative developments in Open ERP have been cleanly integrated, as it enables any company to select from a large list of available functions. (if you research there are more that 500+ modules available today in OpenERP) which allows the client with accessibility, flexibility, and simplicity which are considered to be very important  for the development. 

What I faced while marketing OpenERP in Indian market that is that SME employees are not tech savvy they know basics such as tally accounting, use of Ms office etc. and hence clients always asked for a system which can be used by any person  in the organisation who have knowledge of "ABC" in computer so that the time and cost involved in training for several month could decrease further.

Hence with OpenERP all the needs is been covered in:-

• Accounting & Financial Management with different countries systems
• Business Process Management (Work flow management )
• Sales and Purchases Automation
• Document Management System
• 500+ other modules, which includes CRM, and so on.

Employees enjoy using OpenERP because of the following reason.

• No need to use different software as Major Modules  is been covered in OpenERP.
• Because of Majority of modules are available in the system there is less chances of opening other windows for the same and also there is no double encoding of information.
• OpenERP automate all administrative tasks
• User-friendly web and rich interface with a very good architecture.
• Admin can activate modules as an when require with no additional cost.
• Modules can be removed for those who dont use them for eg: for Purchase manager it will be inventory, Purchase, creating invoice etc only.

Because of the simplicity in the usage of Open ERP there are not only SME's who are implementing OpenERP system there are Big organisations also who are considering OpenERP for their use. This diversity is also found in the various sectors and trades which use this software, including agricultural products, textiles, public auctions, IT, and trade associations.

OpenERP: - What other says - Review of People through social networking sites

I played with openbravo for a projet. We ended up not choosing it.

Issues - Slow... It required an immense server just for normal operation.
Did not cover requirements - while it has a module or two that TinyERP
doesn't TinyERP has many modules that openbravo doesn't
otherwise openbravo is a nice project and I wish them well...  

I specially looked at TinyERP and OpenBravo, so far my conclusion are:

TinyERP is probably is best on all points. OK, Openbravo might be a little sexier graphically, but except that I think it's really not as good. Still I would rate OpenBravo number #2. In my opinion Openbravo already outperforms Compiere or will do that during this year if not yet.

For OpenBravo vs. TinyERP, I would say:

On the functional side:
* OpenBravo is very weak on CRM
* OpenBravo is very weak for services companies
* OpenBravo might be better on POS, while not even sure
* generally speaking OpenBravo has no modularity and won't have soon, so lot's of TinyERP plugin goodness isn't available in TinyERP. So ERP verticalization is not for tomorrow for OpenBravo will it looks in the close future for TinyERP. Functional verticalization is already happening; only a proper packaging will then be required.
* OpenBravo is way too weak on French accounting which matters for us.
   

Great future :

Overall I think Tiny is a great product promised to a great future. Praise for it! 

In my coming post i would be covering with Open source Friend or Foe? So do check out.