In 2011 I was worked my very first job at a fiber optics manufacturer. The company needed to upgrade its badly out of date ERP software. They had a project manager who knew ERP inside and out and they had me. I worked in the sales department as a summer job and they offered me a role as an administrator.

For about a month the PM taught me ERP. He went all the way back to the 1930s with a history lesson and shared how the software had changed and finally what was needed now, in this company.

This learning struck a chord with me. I love learning and this software upgrade took me on a complete path through the company. I had to understand the needs of the production floor, scheduling department, purchasing, sales, finance, engineering, and virtually everyone else.

The PM described this process as a wheel, the scheduler is the hub in the middle and each department is a spoke. As work moves from a sale, to an order, to a shipment, to a payment, the wheel turns and each spoke supports the weight of the company in turn.

My introduction to business wasn’t academic. It was this analogy while meeting every day with people in the company to figure out how to make their lives easier with a software upgrade.

I fell in love with ERP because it isn’t about any one department. It’s the big picture. I love the way I could watch each department affect the others.

Software programs like this one are really just databases with a screen that let’s you enter information. The data itself tells the story of every minute of the work that goes into a company.

Connecting the dots between the story in the data and the stories told by the humans working at the company was one of the most rewarding experiences I ever had. ERP isn’t specialized. It’s everything and everywhere in an organization. That’s why I love ERP.