Proceedings

application for the beneficiary, it reveals other solutions or necessities that attract
additional costs.
Underestimated costs:
• Training represents, on the unanimous opinion of those who have implemented
ERP systems, one of the most underrated aspects of the budget.
• Integration and testing of ERP package with other software tools used by the
company is often an activity whose cost is underestimated.
• Conversion of data from the format required by the old applications to the
format required by the ERP systems is an activity that proves to be very costly
and difficult to estimate quantitatively.
• Maintenance. Developing such a solution actually does not stop, ever.
Customers always have special requirements to change, but there are also
requirements that arise from changes in the law.
4.2.4. ERP II
The evolution of technology is subject to the laws of nature, and is subject to "natural
selection" and "adaptation to environment." These laws express a simple principle: the
things that do not adapt do not survive environmental change. Business is business
and that information systems that support them, are no exception to the law of
evolution. ERP II represents the next stage of development of enterprise resource
planning systems. Technology has entered into the communication era, particularly
with the growth of the Internet. ERP II is actually an ERP adapted to the reality of the
Internet, through changes in functionality, technology and architecture. The most
obvious change is the shift in emphasis from activities focused on the internal
workings of the company, to the integration and external collaboration.
Table 4. ERP applications versus ERP II applications
ERP ERP II
ROLE Optimizing enterprise Integrating the value chain,
FUNCTION Production, sales and distribution, financial
processes
~ 1106 ~
collaborative-commerce opportunities
Vertical processes, horizontal
processes, custom industrial
applications
PROCESSES Internal, hidden External connection including suppliers
and customers
ARCHITECTURE Web-aware, closed, monolithic Web-based, open, modular
DATE Internally generated and consumed Published and shared internally and
externally
(Source: Gartner Research)
4.2.5. ERP solution - Microsoft Dynamics Nav
This software was purchased in 2002 by Microsoft. It passed successive stages of
integration into Microsoft's Navision portfolio of solutions – from “The way to grow”,
to “Microsoft Business Solutions Navision” and then to its current name “Microsoft
Dynamics Nav”. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an application on two or three layers.
The two layer architecture is the most used. The three layer architecture means that
between the client and server, business logic is taken by Navision Application Server,
which performs operations without user interface (eg. barcode reader).