The concept of cloud computing has become commonplace in the past years with applications like Gmail, iCloud, DropBox, and Microsoft 365, to mention a few.
In the world of enterprise applications, it’s a common business scenario to rely on enterprise applications in the cloud, such as Salesforce.com.
Even today, our team of independent ERP consultants sees a great degree of confusion in the field regarding the understanding of cloud computing as it relates to enterprise applications and ERP.
This confusion stems primarily from key aspects that make cloud computing unique, including:
- The method of delivery
- The method of software upgrades
- The method of payment
We’ve seen estimates that as many as 66 percent of all organizations will have moved their core ERP to the cloud by 2019.
We believe larger organizations will be brought into the cloud via Cloud 3.0. This is the next step in the cloud evolution, catering to the unique needs of companies with locations in different regions that seek to gain the benefits of cloud computing for their ERP
View an in-depth webinar that helps sharpen some of these “cloudy” concepts as related to ERP.
Why Mid-sized Businesses Should Think about their Cloud ERP Plan
If there ever was a model that enabled the mantra of “doing more with less,” cloud ERP is it. The reasons are very simple, and are identical to the reasons Fortune 500 customers also need to be concerned with Cloud ERP:
- To save the enterprise money
- To concurrently reduce risk
- To increase productivity potential and values realization from the ERP and associated enterprise applications.
Those ERP project teams that have turned to the Cloud model are succeeding. The high percentage of mid-market executives that have explored or implemented cloud solutions validates the strength of this statement.
When to Start Your Cloud ERP Plan?
As you consider a new ERP implementation, a Cloud ERP Plan becomes interesting when you consider that not all applications have to move at once.
The intention in setting a Cloud ERP plan is for the transition to be fast, efficient, and effective.
Many project teams consider the impact of moving core applications one at a time, other teams think it is easier to move the core application ERP first, and have the others follow.
The right Cloud ERP plan depends on where the business needs and the pain involved in moving. If ERP is not first, then there will be integrations from the outlier applications to the on-premise ERP, which are throwaways.
If an application is, for the most part, self-contained and requiring limited interactions, e.g., forecasting, the application could be moved sooner than later.
Using this perspective, you might want to look at the stack of enterprise applications you’re running and start ‘peeling’ them off one at a time. Applications with limited integrations and high value, like forecasting and human resources can be a starting point, and from there moving to the core of CRM, ERP and BI, while leaving high integration “advanced” applications of APS, MES, WMS, and PLM systems for a later stage.
Considering a Cloud ERP Plan?
Get additional insight from the white paper “Five Steps to Develop Your Cloud ERP Transformation” which delves further into the topics covered here.
The paper also outlines some of the major Cloud ERP players.
Ready to set your own Cloud ERP plan? Contact us to get started.
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