Another approach to information and knowledge management pulls together various types of information to see how decisions and actions in one part of the organization affect other parts of the firm. Many companies are using broad-scale information systems that take a comprehensive view of the organization’s activities. These enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems collect, process, and provide information about a company’s entire enterprise, including order processing, product design, purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, distribution, human resources (HR), receipt of payments, and forecasting of future demand.51 ERP systems can be expensive and difficult to implement, but when applied successfully, an ERP system can serve as the backbone for an organization by integrating and optimizing all the various business processes across the entire firm