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Chapter 3 • Enterprise Systems Architecture 63

Sales and Marketing Module
Revenues from sales are the lifeblood for commercial organizations. The sales module imple-
ments functions of order placement, order scheduling, shipping, and invoicing. The sales module
is closely integrated with an organization’s e-commerce Web sites. Many ERP vendors offer an
online storefront as part of the sales module. On the other hand, the marketing module supports
lead generation, direct mailing campaigns, and more.

Finance Module
The financial module benefits both for-profit organizations and nonprofit organizations. The
financial module is the core of many ERP software systems. It can gather financial data from
various functional departments and generate valuable financial reports (e.g., budgets, balance
sheet, general ledger, trail balance, and quarterly financial statements).

Human Resource Module
The human resources (HR) module is usually the first model implemented by many companies.
The HR module streamlines the management of human resources and human capital. The HR
modules routinely maintain a complete employee database, including contact information,
salary details, attendance, performance evaluation, and promotion. An advanced HR module is
integrated with knowledge management systems to optimally utilize the expertise of all
employees.

Miscellaneous Modules
Some vendors have started offering such nontraditional modules as business intelligence,
self-service, project management, and e-commerce. For example, the business intelligence
module offers tools and data warehousing capabilities to display real-time information through
reports and to monitor historical trends. Furthermore, these reports can be viewed through the
enterprise portal for decision making with executives who can be located around the globe and
can collaboratively make decisions based on the same live data. Self-service is similarly an
important module for present-day consumers because it satisfies their need for “instant gratifica-
tion” in their everyday activities. It allows them to have more control over their purchasing,
tracking, and research. Self-service also has many benefits for employees to include access to
acompany’s intranet, 401Ks, leave and earnings statements, and so on. Employers are also
discovering that there is cost savings associated with letting customers and employees take
ownership of their inquiries and processing. In order for a company to take advantage of the cost
savings, or for consumers and employees to take advantage of the freedom associated with
self-service, an organization must focus on keeping the self-service capability as user-friendly as
possible. This can be done by providing accurate information and a relatively easy method of
database interaction.

Benefits of Key ERP Modules
The following details some of the key benefits touted by such ERP vendors as SAP and Oracle
for the various application modules: