Many companies have made a mistake of first publishing a website, and then deploy ERP.  But, later realized that website is bringing much more business than they are able to manage with the legacy systems.  So, they try to hurriedly put the ERP, as second step.  It is recommended that you streamline your business processes first, by deploying ERP, and then tap the power of internet to expand the business.

The figure shows schematic of an automation process.  The first step is ERP.  That lays the foundation to manage growth.   How can you do web mining without ERP or a website?    Without using internet, business will be limited to geographical location.

Progressive organizations use internet to connect to office using remote access.   Depending on the business model, some organization opts for payment gateway i.e. an interface with the bank server computer.   Business Intelligence (BI) software  solution depends on the ‘On-Line Transaction Processing’ (OLTP).   The ERP software meticulously captures the transaction and stores in a database.

Most multinational companies, as well as many public sector organizations, have adopted ERP and increasingly small and medium sized enterprises have been following suit. Indeed, by 2003 ERP formed the backbone of many application architectures and were being extended into developments such as e-business and e-Governance.  After ERP, the next step is, to publish a simple website (passive), followed by more interactive site, and later a payment gateway for transacting money (Digital money).   All this leads to next step of data mining and web mining.  Next plan is to integrate ERP with web 2.0.