Unicode Support Compliance as a Standard Industry Requirement in the Process of Global ERP Implementation and Deployment - Examining Multiple Additional Benefits of Unicode for Successful Global Enterprise Resource Planning and Execution.

ERP Implementation

Global Enterprise Resource Planning and Execution

In comparison with the encoding potential of other systems, the structure of the first version of Unicode- as far as concerns its translating applications and encoding modules, represented an expanded version of “ASCII,” one of the earliest computer languages, which has 128 code points. The first Unicode prototype was enlarged to 16 bits, allowing the translation of all existing modern languages around the world- although it was not yet fully developed to enable the deciphering of old languages no longer in existence or languages based on historic scripts and hieroglyphics.

The second version of Unicode (Unicode 2.0), released by The Unicode Consortium in 1996, had a wider codespace which increased the number of codepoints to more than a million. This gave the software the ability to process more detailed components among the various technicalities involved in multiple-language translation. For example, it allowed not only the processing and decipherment of text and character sets, ancient scripts based on Arabic or Hebrew, Chinese Han ideograms, Japanese, Korean, and hieroglyphs, but among its many applications for format conversion, it made it possible to encode also mixed scripts- also combined with different characters - from multiple languages within a single text.

The primary stages in the process of global ERP implementation through Unicode deployment to ease the process of foreign market penetration, are based on several other essential functions. The Unicode program provides guidelines for these prerequisites, which involve a number of essential considerations proper to multiple language translation and encoding. Among these we can list character properties such as the rendering of characters or scripts into “lower” or “upper” case; the visual rendering into formats that are acceptable by  the standard word processors or web browsers in the Internet and information technology industries to display proper “size”, “font,” “shape” and “style,” in the text, for example. Other technical complexities for merging multiple mixed languages within a single text, deciphering, translating and encoding their respective characters and scripts, deal with other principal features, such as “normalization,” “decomposition,” “collation,” and additional visual rendering options such as by- directional display - in order to process right-to-left scripts within a text (as in the case of Hebrew and Arabic), or up-to-down ideograms and alphabets like Chinese, Korean or Japanese.  

Several companies may opt to employ Unicode support in the later stages of global ERP deployment, initially concentrating on deploying global ERP solutions to English-speaking country first. The reasons for this Modus Operandi may vary depending on several factors. Some of the most important may be listed as follows: The existing character of the organization and structural make-up of its internal functions; the company’s M.O. in conducting its market strategies on a local and international level; its history of development and survivability on the market vis a vis other competitors, and the length of its market presence and survivability since the date the organization was first founded.

Written by :

Don Cooper