Codestone

Category: SAP Business One

An increased adoption of social collaboration tools into enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is likely to be a feature of 2010, one expert has claimed.

Writing for IndustryWeek, Drew Gude of Microsoft noted that a number of companies have invested heavily in ERP technology for its ability to "provide access to structured, transactional information".

However, with the explosion of networking sites like Facebook, he stated, a new focus has been placed on social computing channels and how this unstructured data can facilitate business-to-business communications.

Mr Gude commented: "Unstructured data is a critical component and having such interaction should be a necessary and required decision-making tool."

As such, next year it will be vital for ERP systems to incorporate functions that enable these flows to take place within the platform, he added.

Earlier this month, SAP executives said at the organisation’s annual Influencer Summit, that integrating more cutting-edge technological functions into its software is a priority over the next five years.