Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is one of the more important upgrades ever in business software. It allowed companies to put their entire company under one umbrella, with one program that gave visibility to the entire organization. Companies that had ERP software loved it, and companies that did not have it knew that they needed it. As the marketplace has evolved, these "single instance" installations began to show some weaknesses that needed to be addressed. The panacea offered by having one way of doing things company-wide began to lose a little of its luster.
