You buy something for 100 and sell it for 200. On paper you are delighted with a 100% profit. In reality, you may already be running into a loss, not just on this transaction but on the customer, the vendor or even the market segment as a whole.

The problem is simple. Businesses often look at selling price minus purchase price and call that profit. But in a real business environment, cost is far more complex. Let us look at where the illusion of profit disappears.

ERP vendors are not asleep on AI. Serious platforms have been weaving AI into planning, forecasting, control and user experience. AI will not replace a real ERP. It will replace small tools that masquerade as ERP, while making true ERPs faster, smarter and safer.