During early phases of development, integrated solutions were designed for particular process areas such as:
Material Management: the integrated system was known as Material Requirement Planning (MRP)
Manufacturing: the integrated system was known as Manufacturing Resource Planning
However none of the integrated systems came with a complete solution for an organization covering major business process areas. In early 1990’s, the Gartner Group first used the acronym ERP. By mid–1990’s, ERP systems addressed all the core enterprise functions.
In the early stages, most of the ERP solutions were focused on automating back office functions that were not directly affecting customers or general public. Later, front office functions such as customer relationship management and e–business systems were integrated.