This week as we look at various types of information systems, I'd like to tell you about a couple of corporations who develop and support a special type of information systems called, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. These are the systems that stretch across all business functions within an organization and are key to enhancing communication. It is the responsibility of these systems to manage all resources of an organization - people, inventory, money, etc.
Because these systems are extremely complex, most organizations purchase ERP software from companies who specialize in building these types of systems. For very large corporations, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP are the vendors of choice. If you aren't already familiar with these names, you should read up on them as I assure you that you will hear them sometime during your management career.
For more information on these vendors, visit their websites listed below. (Be patient with Oracle as it doesn't look like they know much about web design, judging from the look of their website - I hope they design ERP software better than this.) By the way, Oracle bought PeopleSoft a few years ago, so, you'll find them both at the same website even though I've listed separate links for them below.
http://www.oracle.com/applications/e-business-suite.html
http://www.oracle.com/applications/peoplesoft-enterprise.html
http://www.sap.com/usa/index.epx
