Information technology systems in logistics and roles of ERPs

Chosen business processes and software products should certainly provide suitable and reliable applications for long term. However, because of the sudden improvement and change of modern IT Technology, some solutions become out of date and those should be replaced sooner or later, even if we consider the world of Enterprise Resource Planning systems. One can figure out that business requirements for software change management depend on specific business functions, industry, technologies and so on. This is true for the IT needs of logistics as well. With the existence of supply chain management, strong needs for a solid IT background came to life. These needs cover the fields of data mining, advanced business intelligence tools, and the move towards cloud computing and mobile devices as well. After overviewing some of the basic elements and challenges of supply change management, this paper tries to analyse two widespread ERPs, SAP and Dynamics AX, and compare them from logistics point of view. In this area the need for a long term reliable and supported solution and the need for the latest technology exist parallel. There is only a slight difference in the used technology, but a greater difference in the way business flows are handled.