2. Investing in information technology

Effective value chain management requires strong investment in information technology.

The most important technologies include ERP (enterprise resource planning) software, which takes into account all the company's activities.

ERP is a software package that manages all a company's operational processes by integrating several management functions: order management solution, inventory management solution, payroll and accounting management solution, e-commerce management solution, trade management solution, in a single system. In other words, ERP is a company's "backbone".

To qualify as an "integrated management software package", an ERP software solution must cover at least two fundamental principles:

• IT applications built as independent but perfectly compatible modules...