The two barriers to cloud ERP adoption have been security concerns and resistance to change by IT decision makers. The security concerns are no longer relevant as cloud ERPs have the latest security updates deployed on their platform. They also do not have the headaches of update/upgrade cycles, maintenance issues, capacity building issues and the customization needs of on-premise ERP systems. The ease of scale-ability for the cloud platform is a big plus. Cloud ERPs have a smaller investment burden too.
The deciding factors for companies looking at cloud based ERPs are cost advantages/savings, ease of implementation, scalability options, quality of support and legacy issues relating to its current systems and processes and migration issues.
The best way to migrate to a cloud ERP from an on-premise system is to plan for minimal amount of disruption gradually in a phased manner.
Cloud ERP systems have also proven better consistency, ease of use and accessibility. There is no separation of the data, transactions and analytics so that analytics and reporting can be embedded in the transaction system and reports can be accessed in real time. They can also pull in data from external sources like social media and connected devices in an IoT (Internet of Things) framework which can automate decision making and or predict behavior of key stakeholders or prospects.
Reference:
CIO Aug 2016 Issue: ERP heads for the cloud by Michael Nadeau
