Exercise 22.1

Question 1.
Use the coordination theory framework to describe the contribution of ERP software to organisational goals such as efficiency and flexibility.

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning and it is an approach which attempts to consolidate all of a company's departments and functions into a single computer system that services each department's specific needs. Previously an organisation had many separate systems with separate databases that in a lot of cases couldn't talk to each other, or made some functionality very time consuming to implement.

ERP contributes to the organisational goals of efficiency and flexibility because it's main goal is to integrate data and processes from all areas of an organisation and unify it for easy access and work flow. This fits in well with the coordination theory framework which I believe can be described as “managing dependencies between activities” which is exactly what ERP is trying to achieve.

References
What is ERP?(n.d.). Retrieved June 19, 2009, from http://www.tech-faq.com/erp.shtml