NCC Members have free access to these Guidelines on the NCC Membership.

Enterprise Resource Planning is a term that began to gain prominence in the late 1990's as a way to define how an organisation could integrate all of its data and processes into one unified system. Originally a manufacturing term, it quickly became established as the acronym for 'enterprise wide' software systems designed to consistently manage the data that exists within the enterprise.

Since then, ERP has lost some of its shine and is now perceived by many as a 'necessary evil'. These Guidelines attempt to highlight some of the reasons behind this. However, the definition at the heart of ERP still holds true: Organisations still want their data and processes to operate in an integrated way, they still want consistency within those processes and most importantly they want value from those systems both in terms of reduced cost of operation and also in terms of better information upon which businesses can make informed decisions.

These Guidelines are intended to be a guide as to how to go about thinking about ERP systems from the initial objective right through to delivery and implementation. There are no right or wrong answers as every customer is unique and will have their own unique set of circumstances within their IT landscape.