BPM vs ERP

ERP vs BPM - Which one is the best?

A quick search for this subject on the internet and we find several discussions, some of them even very fuzzy. Because they do not know the purpose of each tool well, some people end up getting confused when it comes to choosing or opting to use. Therefore, in this article I will show the characteristics and applications of each tool.

ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning: ERP systems aim to control all the operations of a company guaranteeing the integrity and the ballast of the same. With this control it is possible to visualize information that will aid in the decision-making.

With an ERP system the company has control of everything that comes in and everything that comes out (all movement), be it merchandise, service or even finances.

Example: Having this control you can view the inventory movement of a given product in a given period. With this information the business owner can, through reports of the own ERP, have a suggestion of the ideal quantity to be purchased for this product for a future period. You can also view the company's cash flow, accounts receivable and accounts payable, reports, tax liabilities and so on. All this information will help in making decisions that will directly impact the sustainability of the company.

That is, the ERP system will actually guarantee control of the company as a whole, but for this, it depends on people feeding it correctly. The power of the ERP system will depend on the company process, which often even differs somewhat from the ERP process requiring some adaptations on both sides.

BPM - Business Process Management: Actually BPM is not really a system, but a concept. It is an adaptive management approach, developed with the purpose of designing, systematizing and facilitating organizational processes, inside and outside companies.

There are systems that have been designed to assist in BPM which are called BPMS (Business Process Management Suites / System).

BPMS systems or suites use a notation called BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation). This notation ensures that any BPMS system follows the same pattern, thus facilitating the understanding of flows and diagrams generated independent of the tool.

In summary, once the company process has been mapped to BPM, it is possible to visualize the flow of the operations and the order in which they must be executed to ensure the smooth operation of the process. Having this, it is possible to guarantee for example that people feed an ERP system in the right way at the right time.

With a BPMS it is possible to generate systems with graphical interfaces where the users responsible for each stage of the company's process should register some information assuring its execution. This information may eventually be written to or even retrieved from ERP systems.