The ERP system at UNIDO improved transparency, information flows, collaboration, organizational efficiency and effectiveness

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system's purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside an organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. Built on a centralized database, ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and organization-wide system environment.

It provides an integrated suite of IT applications that, following best practice, support business processes and activities such as project management, human resource management, finance, procurement and other corporate core functions, both at Headquarters and the field.

One of the most important activities associated with the implementation of an ERP system is the opportunity to streamline and improve the operations of an organization through business process reengineering and the implementation of best practices and standards.

The implementation of UNIDO's ERP system delivered, among others, the following advantages:

• A fully transparent end-to-end process from identification of needs to achievement of project results i.e. the whole project cycle on one ERP platform;
• Streamlined, more efficient business processes supported by a single system;
• Access to one integrated platform to collect and disseminate information in real-time, rather than having to maintain parallel versions of that information in multiple unique systems;
• Shared information flows without duplication, seamlessly connecting operations at Headquarters and field and across business functions and units;
• Dissemination of knowledge regardless of locations.