The concept of a corporate information system. Classification of corporate information systems Principles of creating highly reliable corporate information systems

Network technologies provide new opportunities in the management of enterprises and organizations. Corporate information technology- management ideology that combines business strategy and information technology. Corporate information system (CIS) is a scalable system designed for comprehensive automation of all types of economic activities of large and medium-sized enterprises, including corporations consisting of a group of companies requiring unified management. CIS can be considered a system that automates more than 80% of the divisions of an enterprise.

The main task of the CIS is to support the functioning and development of the enterprise. The raison d'être of any commercial enterprise, as we know, is to make a profit. Despite the fact that the areas of activity of enterprises (production, services) can be very different, in general the management tasks are similar. They consist in organizing the management of the resources entering the enterprise to obtain the required result at the output.

The information system of the individual divisions that make up the company (financial, economic, marketing, etc.) cannot claim corporatism. Only a fully functional system can rightfully be characterized as a CIS. CIS are a development of systems for workgroups, they are aimed at large companies and can support geographically dispersed nodes or networks. Basically they have a hierarchical structure of several levels. Such systems are characterized by a client-server architecture with specialization of servers or a multi-level architecture. When developing such systems, the same database servers can be used as when developing group systems. information systems. However, in large information systems, servers are most widespread Oracle, DB2 And Microsoft SQL Server.

For group and corporate systems, the requirements for reliable operation and data security are significantly increased. These properties are provided by maintaining the integrity of data, links and transactions in database servers. The most significant feature of an integrated information system should be the expansion of the automation circuit to obtain a closed, self-regulating system capable of flexibly and quickly rearranging the principles of its functioning.

The CIS should include tools for documentation support for management, information support for subject areas, communication software, tools for organizing collective work of employees and other auxiliary (technological) products. From this, in particular, it follows that a mandatory requirement for CIS is the integration of a large number of software products.

The information structure of the company must be described by characteristic control laws that regulate control actions on the system. It is advisable for a large enterprise to use a CIS that complies with the MRP II control laws. Such CIS are capable of providing the manager with the necessary information about the possibility of fulfilling requests for the supply of products. Other CIS are integrated enterprise management systems, so-called ERP systems. ERP systems can be used by large enterprises to manage and store data flows and contribute to the development of enterprise e-business.

ERP system (English Enterprise Resource Planning System- Enterprise resource planning system) - CIS designed to automate accounting and management. As a rule, ERP systems are built on a modular basis and, to one degree or another, cover all the key processes of the company.

Historically, the ERP concept has become a development of simpler concepts MRP(Material Requirement Planning - Planning of material requirements) and MRP II(Manufacturing Resource Planning - Planning of production resources). The software tools used in ERP systems allow for production planning, modeling the flow of orders and assessing the possibility of their implementation in the services and departments of the enterprise, linking it with sales.

ERP systems are based on the principle of creating a single data warehouse containing all corporate business information and providing simultaneous access to it by any required number of enterprise employees vested with appropriate authority. Data changes are made through the functions (functionality) of the system. The ERP system consists of the following elements: model for managing information flows (IP) in an enterprise; hardware and technical base and means of communication; DBMS, system and supporting software; a set of software products that automate IP management; regulations for the use and development of software products; IT department and supporting services; actual users of software products.

The main functions of ERP systems: maintaining design and technological specifications that determine the composition of manufactured products, as well as the material resources and operations necessary for their manufacture; formation of sales and production plans; planning the requirements for materials and components, timing and volumes of supplies to fulfill the production plan; inventory and procurement management: maintaining contracts, implementing centralized procurement, ensuring accounting and optimization of warehouse and workshop inventories; production capacity planning from large-scale planning to the use of specific equipment; operational financial management, including drawing up a financial plan and monitoring its implementation, financial and management accounting; project management, including planning stages and resources.

The difference between ERP systems and electronic document management systems (EDMS) is that, as a rule, in ERP documents are not “maintained”, but “posted” - after they have completed their life cycle, that is, they will be created, discussed, tested, agreed upon, approved, etc. And the EDMS supports such a life cycle of documents in the enterprise.

Classic ERP systems, as opposed to the so-called “out of the box” software, belong to the category of “heavy” software products that require quite a lot of setup in order to start using them. ERP system selection, acquisition and implementation usually require careful planning as part of a long-term project with the participation of a partner company - a supplier or consultant. Since ERP systems are built on a modular basis, the customer often (at least at the early stage of such projects) does not purchase a full range of modules, but a limited set of them. During implementation, the project team usually spends several months configuring the supplied modules.

The information access control system implemented in ERP systems is designed (in combination with other enterprise information security measures) to counter both external threats (for example, industrial espionage) and internal ones (for example, theft). Implemented in conjunction with CRM-system and quality control system, ERP systems are aimed at maximizing the needs of companies for business management tools.

There is a misconception that sometimes ERP is difficult or impossible to adapt to a company’s document flow and its specific business processes. In fact, any implementation of an ERP system is preceded by the stage of describing the company’s business processes. Essentially, an ERP system is a virtual projection of a company.

Companies that are corporations are complex multidisciplinary structures and, as a result, have a distributed hierarchical management system - corporate management. Divisions, enterprises, branches and administrative offices included in the company, as a rule, are located at a sufficient distance from each other. Their information connection forms the communication structure of the company, the basis of which is the information system.

An information system is a company’s infrastructure involved in the process of managing all information and document flows, including the following mandatory elements.
An information model, which is a set of rules and algorithms for the functioning of an information system. The information model includes all forms of documents, the structure of directories and data, etc.
Regulations for the development of the information model and the rules for making changes to it.
Human resources (development department, external consultants) responsible for the formation and development of the information model.
Software whose configuration meets the requirements of the information model (software is the main mechanism for managing the IS). In addition, there are always requirements for the software supplier that regulate the procedure for technical and user support throughout the entire life cycle.
Human resources responsible for customizing and adapting the software and its compliance with the approved information model.
Regulations for making changes to custom structures (specific settings, database structures, etc.) and software configuration and the composition of its functional modules.
Hardware and technical base that meets the requirements for operating software (workplace computers, peripherals, telecommunications channels, system software and database management system (DBMS).
Operational and technical human resources, including personnel for maintaining the hardware and technical base.
Rules for using the software and user instructions, regulations for training and certification of users.

The corporate information system (CIS) provides support for making management decisions based on the automation of processes, procedures and other ways of carrying out the company's activities. Activities are regulated by information and regulatory documents, as well as the results of measurements and assessments, statistical materials and operational management, etc. In addition, the tasks of the CIS may be to assist personnel in analyzing problems, visually examining complex objects, and developing new products.

The main controlling factor is the decision-making procedure, based on the result of which the system (enterprise, corporation, company, organization) is influenced. The CIS itself does not make decisions, but, being effectively configured, it is capable of supplying information to the manager and decision makers from the perspective that is most suitable for making a specific decision.

CIS can take over most routine processes, but not all decision-making processes. In turn, management without IS, built on modern information technologies, becomes less and less effective.

Information technology is a set of hardware, software, information storage technologies, network technologies that provide communications and connection of system components into a single whole. All these resources used in the company determine the information technology infrastructure, or IT infrastructure, which is the foundation for building an IS.

IS contains data about various objects necessary for a specific company. At the same time she uses information Technology to transform a set of data into a stream of information that can be used by a person. There is a significant difference between the concepts of “software” and “information system”. Programs, just like the electronic stuffing of computers, are just materials for creating a modern IP. Computers provide storage and processing of information; software is a set of instructions that control the actions of a computer. Knowing how computers and software work is important when developing solutions for companies, but we must not forget that it is just part of IP.

As part of the CIS, it is customary to take into account tools for documentation support for management, information support for subject areas, communication software, tools for organizing collective work of employees and other auxiliary (technological) products. A mandatory requirement for CIS is the integration of a large number of software products that implement various methods management.

IN corporate systems Various management methods are used, including methods for managing resources, processes, projects and corporate knowledge (in a broad sense).

Resource management methods use a model that represents a company as a system of resources (finance, inventories, personnel) owned by the owners: legal entities, structural divisions, individuals. All processes are described as transactions (business transactions), reflecting the movement of resources between owners. This includes managing finances, inventories, and personnel to the extent that they are considered a resource (salaries). The main management goal for this method is to provide and control resources.

The management method is well described by models that have become standards: the accounting model (for example, CAAP), manufacturing resource planning (MRP II), enterprise resource planning (ERP). Balance sheet models with posting language are used as a universal presentation language. The methods in this group are supported by a wide range of application software, with accounting systems being the most common.

Process management methods use a model of the company as a system of business processes. Here the central concepts are process, function, data, event. The main control goal for these methods is to ensure coordination of events and functions.

This includes methods such as quality management (TQM standards, ISO 9000), process management (Workflow standards of the Workflow Management Coalition association). These also include project management (the PMI family of standards), but only to the extent that these projects can be considered standard, reduced to the level of technology. Formal languages ​​are used as a universal language for presenting descriptions, many of which are fixed as standards: languages ​​of the IDEF family, CIM-OSA, languages ​​for describing object-oriented models. Management methods are supported by software, which is known as project management systems, document management, and technological processes.

Project management methods based on the PMI (Project Management Institute - RMBOK) family of standards, schedule and network planning models, critical path method, earned value methodology, etc. supported by software for managing projects, obligations (contracts), deliveries, etc.

Knowledge management methods use the company model as a system of small teams of employees solving a common problem, and corporate knowledge and effective communications act as organizing factors. The main corporate management resource is the corporate knowledge base, in which employees can quickly find information to make the right decision and understand each other. This base concentrates the company's collective experience and creates the basis for corporate communications.

The main goal of management is to ensure coordination, communication and quick search for information for independent decision-making. This group of management methods is now experiencing a period of rapid development and is collectively called “knowledge management.” It is still too early to talk about standards at the model level, although some trends have emerged in the field of universal description languages. To structure information, the SGML language is beginning to be actively used, which is recorded as the ISO 8879 standard. This group of methods also includes project management methods (the PMI family of standards), which are supported by special software such as Primavera Methodology Manager, which summarizes the experience of project implementation and allows, based on libraries of standard fragments quickly generate new projects that meet new requirements in terms of timing, resources, depth of elaboration of the project structure, budget, etc.

When using such systems, critical management factors are project communications and qualification level project team, and not the quality of the project. In general, knowledge management methods are supported by GroupWare class software, information retrieval systems, intranet technologies: web technology, by email, teleconferences. GroupWare systems served as the starting point for intranet technology. It is no coincidence that the leaders of the GroupWare class software market have become the leading manufacturers of intranet systems: Lotus, Microsoft, Novell. Along with the listed manufacturers, Netscape and Oracle occupied a strong place in this market.

Wide-profile information systems, which mostly include modern CIS, must equally, to the maximum extent possible, satisfy all divisions of the company, and, if possible, preserve existing business processes, as well as management methods and structure. Without the use of automation, it is practically impossible to control the constantly changing balance of resources, business processes, ongoing projects (groups of projects, programs) and knowledge growing exponentially.

If top managers are thinking about creating a corporate information system, then this can only mean one thing: they are managing a fast-growing company, which just yesterday was satisfied with standard office applications, and today its complex multidisciplinary structure with an equally complex management hierarchy needs reliable and sufficient easy to use tools. Corporate information systems (CIS) prove effective both in managing and transmitting large amounts of information; today they are necessary for large enterprises.

The need to create a corporate information system arises as the volume of information grows. If the decision is made today to implement the system, what can top managers expect tomorrow?

CIS: effectiveness, application

Firstly, one should expect better internal controllability, which increases resistance to external adverse influences. Secondly, increased efficiency, which ultimately leads to increased profitability. Thirdly, improving interaction with partners, suppliers, and customers, which cannot but affect competitiveness.

The use of corporate information systems (in the West they are called MIS - Management Information System, which translates as management information system) is a reason for ongoing discussions. This is partly due to the fact that corporate management is looking for new ways of development. And partly also because control systems, having become a separate scientific field, have also become an independent branch of high technology. In this regard, one should not be surprised at the variety of definitions of concepts.

The abbreviation KIS by itself does not explain or guarantee anything.

Trying to find a universal definition of a corporate information system means assuming that a single standard approach to any corporation will guarantee results.

In practice, a corporate information system is built taking into account the realities of a particular company. As for the general functional characteristics, despite the controversy, five key concepts seem to be the most objective: intelligence (targeted collection of information), integration (information is available in common system), modularity (the ability to add new components, for example, modules for detecting fraudulent activities), openness (no obstacles to working with other communication programs), adaptability (the ability to quickly change settings and reconfigure).

Watch a video about creating corporate information systems:

There are two more characteristics that do not require special decoding: accessibility for the user, who does not have to puzzle over how it all works every time; support of the system by developers, albeit remotely.

If a business model is a detailed and precise description of a business, then information model– a component (subset) of this complex system designed to debug the information flows of a particular corporation, subordinating them to a given goal.

In other words, a corporate information system is a synthesis of business and information, in the first case it is about strategy, in the second it is about technology. Everything taken together is ideology.

The corporate information system operates in a distributed structure (corporation) - both vertically and horizontally.

Information is, on the one hand, a routine that one has to deal with every day, on the other, it is a strategic resource, so there is no need to particularly emphasize the importance of the reliability of the system, which must be ready to expand the circuit and at the same time remain closed, self-regulating. Not to mention the fact that it usually includes a security module to prevent unwanted information leakage within the corporation and especially outside it.

CIS: classification

If you try to set priorities, then a corporate information system is, firstly, a system, and only secondly, for this system.

The variety of tasks also requires a variety of tools for building a specific CIS.

Considering the specifics of corporate information systems, six main classes (types) should be distinguished in accordance with the tasks assigned to them:

1. The ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning System) system builds into a single chain all the corporation’s resources related to production, sales, and order accounting. This is a quite popular project. Over the past decade, it has served as the automation standard for the vast majority of enterprises throughout the world. Suffice it to say that over 100 companies are developing such projects, and most of them are focused on the needs of medium-sized businesses, creating for them “light” versions of the system at an attractive price;
2. The CRM (Customer Relationship Management System) system is aimed at effective management of the customer base at various stages of interaction - from the implementation of transactions to the collection and analysis of information about customers. The market for CRM systems in Russia is estimated by experts at $50-70 million and is considered quite promising, especially in financial, insurance and telecommunications companies. For example, the Bank of Russia operates a document management automation system, which 10 years ago was used to a limited extent to support paper document management, but now it has become widespread not only as an electronic document management system in the system of Bank institutions, but also in industry document management. Effective CRM work with the client base according to the Zipf-Pareto law, when 80% of the result is due to 20% of the efforts. Indeed, 20% of the efforts of business analysts thanks to the information system produce 80% of the results. They no longer need primary data processing, the system did it for them, providing them with information for analysis and making financial proposals;
3. The MES (Manufacturing Execution System) system is designed for manufacturing workers who, using its capabilities, will be able not only to track the stages of the production cycle in real time, but also to significantly optimize it, making the necessary adjustments to the process right along the way. Moreover, which is extremely useful, the system will reflect both the return on fixed assets and turnover Money, and impartially calculate the cost, profit and efficiency not only in the corporation as a whole, but also in a separate section of the workshop or production line. What a person might miss, the system will not miss, especially if it concerns the detailed development of project stages, passing checkpoints, and accounting for the necessary resources;
4. The WMS (Warehouse Management System) system has a narrow specialization and is aimed at establishing ideal order in the warehouse; it manages warehouse processes through their comprehensive automation;
5. EAM system (Enterprise Asset Management) struggles with equipment downtime, forces to reduce costs for repair and maintenance work and calls into question the overly generous funding that suppliers claim. In short, this is a fairly effective tool for managers who manage companies in capital-intensive industries - from the mining industry to housing and communal services. It only remains to add that more and more often EAM (already as a module) is being included in large ERP systems, entrusting them with the management of fixed assets;
6. The HRM (Human Resource Management) system is in charge of personnel accounting, search, assessment, training, and motivation.

Video about HRM in English:

CIS price issue

Now that we know what corporate information systems are and their classification in accordance with the tasks they face, it is worth finding out the price of the issue, which gives an idea of ​​the scale of the system. It fluctuates in four price niches.

1. Implementation of a local system (for example, to establish and maintain ideal order in a warehouse) will cost from $5,000-50,000;
2. A financial and management system (for managing the resources of a non-production company) will cost from $50,000 to $200,000;
3. Medium integrated systems (for production process planning) – from $50,000 to $500,000;
4. Large integrated systems (for corporations in the literal sense of the word - holdings, financial and production groups) are valued at $500,000 and above. This is a case where money makes money.

As for the organization of the corporate information system itself, there are 4 methods, among which the most common systems are file server and client server, and more complex ones are three-tier and Internet/intranet systems.

Enterprise system management

The corporate information system serves for a comprehensive analysis of business processes (including inter-corporate ones) and the selection of decisions that are justified in the analysis.

Of course, the system itself does not make decisions, but, being effectively configured, it contributes to competent decision-making by the manager and makes it easier for him to make a choice. If this is, of course, a management system and not an accounting system. Experts believe that software systems are considered management if they support the iterative procedure “planning -> control -> deviation analysis -> feedback”.

Video about document flow integration with 1C:

Discussions about the essence of concepts and abbreviations related to CIS are not the only ones. An equally controversial aspect is the value of foreign experience. Despite its positivity and significance, for example, we do not have industry management standards that exist in most developed countries. Consequently, the approaches to decision making will differ between us and the West. Not to mention the fact that management as a scientific branch has become widespread in our country only in the last 10 years and that information systems in Russian enterprises, as a rule, develop “from accounting” (hence the popularity of 1C products), and in the West – “from resource saving”.

The appearance of information system software products - both foreign and Russian - dates back to the late 90s. The former are distinguished by their high price, extensive implementation experience and an impressive range of “ready-made” solutions for a particular industry (see above for the degree of their usefulness in our reality). The second is due to relatively modest prices, a Russified version of the software and the developer’s willingness to be close to the customer.

Enterprise system software

Range of offers for Russian market quite wide: about 500 companies, varying in scale and qualifications, offer their services in developing software products for corporate information systems. Moreover, only one out of five of these firms is a commercial or industrial enterprise.

A software package is not yet a management system with ready-made solutions for any reason. Like coffee, which is supplied to cappuccino lovers according to the “three in one” scheme, a corporate information system is, firstly, management technologies, secondly, information tools, and thirdly, a recipe not for everyone, but for specific corporation.

It is interesting that in most cases, the construction of a corporate information system in Russia is of a “boxed” nature, starting with the choice of software.

As Western experts note, it is much more rational when a project is implemented by business consultants rather than by software package suppliers. The former are focused on satisfying the customer’s goals, the latter are focused on promoting their product.

The basis is a misunderstanding that a corporate information system is primarily the competence of managers, not programmers, since the difficulties of implementing a system in the first place do not even rest on investments, but on the need for a serious and sometimes radical transformation of the company’s structure.

A corporate information system in general is a system designed to ensure the effective functioning of a company through the automated execution of management functions.

Corporate information systems, or integrated management systems, cover almost all aspects of the work of a modern enterprise, making the connection between production facilities and information infrastructure components ever closer, and have a number of integral characteristics.

The main characteristics for integrated control systems are as follows:

Cross-platform - an application that implements the functions of a separate management discipline, transparent to different operating environments;

Cross-disciplinarity - applications for different disciplines use common information;

Openness - the ability to integrate management tools from other suppliers.

Cross-disciplinary capabilities ensure the joint operation of various control modules and thereby increase the efficiency of the entire system as a whole. For example, you can integrate software management tools with a storage management application. As a result, the backup program will be aware of which application systems were recently installed and perform backups only when necessary.

A fully integrated management environment must provide a unified, open way to view and share information that can be used by all management applications within the environment across all computing platforms. The integrated environment must meet the following requirements:

have a consistent user interface

be able to share information across different operating environments and management disciplines. Implementing this capability requires a shared, possibly distributed, data repository and an object-oriented architectural framework (for example, the object-oriented foundation of Tivoli's TME 10 integrated family of management applications);

provide a view of the information infrastructure both from the point of view of system and network management, and based on business interests.

be distributed both physically and logically;

provide a hierarchical management organization - the ability to delegate manager rights from top to bottom and transfer responsibility for performing certain actions from bottom to top.

In a large distributed computing environment, many management "transactions" must be performed every day: generating event messages, modifying user credentials, distributing new software, managing storage operations, collecting performance information, and so on. Using an integrated management system that meets these conditions can significantly improve operational efficiency and prevent errors due to repetition of the same type of actions. Automatic event correlation also improves the quality of a manager's work.

The openness of the control environment is achieved through application programming interfaces and other tools, such as the Tivoli/Plus integration module package in TME 10 or the agent authoring tool in Unicenter-TNG. These capabilities allow you to integrate new products as well as those systems that your organization has already used and continue to provide value to, thereby preserving your investment.

At the same time, an ill-conceived organization of information systems management cannot provide such guarantees. Analyzing the management systems available today and their impact on the work of the corporation, we can distinguish three parameters for their assessment:

Efficiency - how many network devices, servers or desktop systems can be managed by one administrator. The effectiveness of the management system shows how well the work of administrators is organized. When using an effective system, business development will outstrip the process of expanding the staff of specialists; such a management system allows one administrator to support large quantity nodes (servers, users, network devices) and perform more management operations remotely. This reduces the number of moves a manager has to make and therefore reduces the associated costs.

Productivity is the time it takes an administrator to perform activities to maintain and improve the efficiency of the network, systems, and applications. A productive system reduces the cost of daily operations, freeing up the information environment administrator's time to analyze existing systems, optimize their performance, and isolate potential sources of problems. Thus, the administrator gets the opportunity to develop and quickly implement new ideas.

Availability. Such a characteristic of the control system as ensuring the availability of network and system resources is extremely important for a modern enterprise. Resource availability implies the availability of business applications. The real value of various network devices, servers, and desktop systems is determined by their ability to provide consistent and reliable application performance. Accordingly, the quality of a management system is determined by the extent to which it can guarantee performance and reliability at the level of business applications. Because application efficiency is so critical to enterprise operations, integrating resource, traffic, and application performance data into a single management environment is becoming a key success factor for information technology.

When building corporate information systems, various concepts and methodologies are used:

MPS (Master Planning Schedule) is a well-known methodology for “scope scheduling”. The idea of ​​this methodology is to formulate a sales plan - “volume”, broken down by calendar periods, on the basis of which a replenishment plan is drawn up and financial results are assessed by period, for which planning periods or financial periods are used. It is basic for almost all plan-oriented methodologies. It is mainly used in manufacturing, but can also be used in other business sectors, such as distribution.

MRP (Material Requirements Planning) - A methodology for planning the need for material resources, which consists in determining the final need for resources according to the data of the production volume schedule. The key concept of the methodology is the concept of “explosion”, i.e. bringing the tree composition of a product to a linear list (Bill of Materials), according to which the demand is planned and components are ordered.

CRP (Capacity Requirements Planning) - Planning of production resources. This concept is similar to MRP, but instead of a single concept of product composition, it operates with concepts such as “machining center”, “machine”, “work resources”, which is why the technical implementation of CRP is more complex. Usually used in conjunction with MRP due to the close logical connection in planning. MRP/CRP methodologies are used in automated control systems of manufacturing enterprises.

FRP (Finance Requirements Planning) - Planning of financial resources.

MRP II (Manufacturing Resources Planning) - Production planning. Integrated methodology including MRP/CRP and typically MPS and FRP. Joint planning of material flows and production capacities allows us to raise the entire planning system to a new level, since it is possible to very accurately determine the financial results of the generated production plan, which is impossible with partial planning. When using this methodology, an analysis of the financial results of the production plan is necessarily implied.

ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) - Business planning concept. ERP refers to an “integrated” system that performs the functions provided by the MPS-MRP/CRP-FRP concepts. An important difference from the MRPII methodology is the possibility of “dynamic analysis” and “dynamic plan modification” along the entire planning chain. The specific capabilities of the ERP methodology depend significantly on the software implementation. The ERP concept is more general than MRPI I. If MRPII has a clear focus on manufacturing companies, then the ERP methodology is applicable in trade, in the service sector, and in the financial sector.

CSRP (Customer Synchronized Resources Planning) - Resource planning synchronized with the customer. CSRP includes a full cycle - from the design of a future product taking into account customer requirements, to warranty and after-sales service. The essence of CSRP is to integrate the buyer into the enterprise management system. In this case, it is not the sales department, but the buyer himself who places an order for the manufacture of products, is responsible for the correct execution of the order and, if necessary, monitors compliance with production and delivery deadlines. An enterprise can very clearly monitor trends in demand for its products.

SCM (Supply Chain Management) - Supply chain management. The SCM concept was invented to optimize supply chain management and can significantly reduce transport and operating costs through optimal structuring of logistics supply chains. The SCM concept is supported in most ERP and MRPII class systems.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) - The concept of building automated customer service systems for a company. CRM involves the accumulation, processing and analysis of not only financial and accounting information, but also other information about relationships with clients. This improves manager productivity, improves customer service and increases sales.

Corporate information systems can be divided into two classes: financial and management and production.

1. Financial and management systems include a subclass of small integrated systems. Such systems are designed for maintaining records in one or several areas (accounting, sales, warehouse, personnel, etc.). Almost any enterprise can use the systems of this group.

Systems of this class are usually universal, their implementation cycle is short, sometimes you can use the “boxed” version by purchasing the program and installing it on your PC yourself.

Financial and management systems (especially those of Russian developers) are much more flexible in adapting to the needs of a particular enterprise. “Constructors” are often offered, with the help of which “you can almost completely rebuild the source system, independently or with the help of a supplier, by establishing connections between database tables or individual modules.”

2. Manufacturing systems (also called manufacturing control systems) include subclasses of medium and large integrated systems. They are intended primarily for the management and planning of the production process. Accounting functions, although deeply developed, play a supporting role, and sometimes it is impossible to single out an accounting module, since information in the accounting department comes automatically from other modules.

These systems are functionally different: in one the production module may be well developed, in the other; financial. Comparative analysis systems of this level and their applicability to a specific case can result in significant work. And to implement the system, you need a whole team of financial, managerial and technical experts. Production systems are much more complex to install (the implementation cycle can take from 6-9 months to a year and a half or more). This is because the system covers the needs of the entire enterprise, and this requires significant joint efforts between enterprise employees and software providers.

Manufacturing systems are often focused on one or more industries and/or types of production: serial assembly (electronics, mechanical engineering), small-scale and pilot (aviation, heavy engineering), discrete (metallurgy, chemistry, packaging), continuous (oil production, gas production).

Specialization is reflected both in the set of system functions and in the existence of business models of this type production. The presence of built-in models for a certain type of production distinguishes production systems from each other. Each of them has deeply developed areas and functions, the development of which is just beginning or is not underway at all.

In many respects, production systems are much more stringent than financial and management systems. The main focus “is on planning and optimal production management. The effect of the introduction of production systems is manifested at the upper echelons of enterprise management, when the whole picture of its work becomes visible, including planning, purchasing, production, sales, inventories, financial flows and other aspects.”

With increasing complexity and breadth of coverage of enterprise functions by the system, the requirements for technical infrastructure and software and hardware platform increase. All production systems are developed using industrial databases. In most cases, client-server or Internet technologies are used.

To automate large enterprises in world practice, a mixed solution from the classes of large, medium and small integrated systems is often used. The presence of electronic interfaces simplifies interaction between systems and avoids double data entry.

There are also types of CIS, such as custom (unique) and replicated CIS.

Custom CIS is usually understood as “systems created for a specific enterprise that has no analogues and is not subject to further replication.”

Such systems are used either to automate the activities of enterprises with unique characteristics or to solve an extremely limited range of special tasks.

Custom systems, as a rule, either do not have prototypes at all, or the use of prototypes requires significant changes of a qualitative nature. The development of a custom CIS is characterized by an increased risk in terms of obtaining the required results.

Replicated (adaptable) CIS. The essence of the problem of adapting replicated CIS, i.e. adaptation to working conditions at a particular enterprise, is that ultimately each CIS is unique, but at the same time it also has common, typical properties. Adaptation requirements and the complexity of their implementation significantly depend on the problem area and the scale of the system. Even the first programs that solved individual automation problems were created taking into account the need to configure them according to parameters.

The development of a corporate information system at an enterprise can be carried out both “from scratch” and on the basis of a reference model.

The reference model is a description of the appearance of the system, functions, organized structures and processes that are typical in some sense (industry, type of production, etc.).

It reflects the typical features inherent in a certain class of enterprises. A number of companies producing adaptable (replicated) CIS, together with large consulting firms, have been developing reference models for enterprises in the automotive, aviation and other industries for a number of years.

Adaptations and reference models are part of many MRP II / ERP class systems, which can significantly reduce the time for their implementation in enterprises.

The reference model at the beginning of work on enterprise automation can be a description existing system(as is) and serves as the starting point from which work to improve the CIS begins.

The following classification is also used. CIS are divided into three (sometimes four) large groups:

• 1) simple (“boxed”);
• 2) middle class;
• 3) top class.

Simple (“boxed”) CIS implement a small number of business processes of an organization. Typical examples of systems of this type are accounting, warehouse and small trading systems the most widely represented on the Russian market. For example, systems of such companies as 1C, Infin, etc.

A distinctive feature of such products is their relative ease of absorption, which, combined with a low price, compliance with Russian legislation and the ability to choose a system “to suit your taste,” makes them widely popular. Mid-range systems are distinguished by greater depth and breadth of functionality. These systems are offered by Russian and foreign companies. As a rule, these are systems that allow you to keep track of the activities of an enterprise in many or several areas:

• - finances;
• - logistics;
• - staff;
• - sales.

They require configuration, which in most cases is carried out by specialists from the development company, as well as user training.

These systems are most suitable for medium and some large enterprises due to their functionality and higher cost compared to the first class. From Russian systems of this class One can highlight, for example, the products of the companies Galaktika and TB. SOFT

The highest class includes systems that differ high level detailing the economic activities of the enterprise. Modern versions of such systems provide planning and management of all organizational resources (ERP systems).

As a rule, when implementing such systems, existing business processes in the enterprise are modeled and system parameters are adjusted to meet business requirements.

However, significant redundancy and a large number of customizable system parameters cause long term its implementation, and also the need to have a special unit or group of specialists at the enterprise who will reconfigure the system in accordance with changes in business processes.

There is a large selection of high-end CIS on the Russian market, and their number is growing. Recognized world leaders are, for example, R/3 from SAP, Oracle Application from Oracle.