5 Cloud ERP Considerations to Reduce Risk and Improve Productivity

TechPillar
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

As cloud Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is gaining momentum across different industries, as it underpins every business activity. From finance & accounting and purchase management to production management, warehouse management and supply chain management, every activity can be managed effectively with an ERP solution. But, the idea of changing an on-premise ERP model to the cloud can cause anxiety among decision makers. After all, shifting such a major pillar of business to the cloud demands cautiousness.

When you have multiple cards to opt for, it’s hard to pick any one. The same applies to cloud ERP. Options are many, making it tough for decision makers to decide the best one. Before jumping ahead with any cloud ERP, you need to understand the proposed solutions. Get ready to gather your thoughts on whether to use a single-tenant or a multiple-tenant environment. The choice between public and private cloud ERP solution also needs to be considered beforehand, so that you are left in no doubt by the time of final selection.

Single-Tenant versus Multi-Tenant Environment

Under the model of single-tenant environment, each business using the cloud ERP solutions gets a separate environment where the solution runs. The independent computing environment in the cloud provides scalability of features to individual businesses, without letting the performance getting affected by the needs of other businesses. However under the multi-tenant environment, different businesses together share the same cloud application software. The latter option is preferred by those companies which prefer a cost-effective ERP solution with fewer customizations.

Public versus Private Cloud Platforms

In the public cloud platform, a common architecture is used to support the ERP system along with computer hardware, operating system, storage devices and other software. You have Microsoft, Google and Amazon as a public cloud platform, which deploy different types of business software along with the ERP system. Under private cloud platform, a single computing environment is created with all software and solutions.

Flexibility to Customize

If you want your business systems work efficiently, even when you are making a major shift to the cloud ERP, flexibility is something to look out for. Your cloud ERP should provide the flexibility to make further customizations down the line as per the shifting requirements. The ability of cloud ERP to customize vary from one vendor to another. So, it’s important that you do your homework right and compare and evaluate the flexibility to customize.

Control on your Data

The transition of all your database to a new ERP platform needs to be as painless as possible. If you are looking to scale up your business processes, it’s important that you go for an ERP system that grows with them. So, prepare yourself to bear the upfront cost for an ERP solution, which assures higher flexibility of services down the line.

Vendor Software Support

Vendor software support is required by every business, though in different levels. Especially when a business does not have technical support in-house, the ongoing consultancy of vendors is even more important to troubleshoot any kind of issue. While selecting between different ERP vendors, go for the one which provides a support team on hand to assist you at every stage, starting from implementation to upgrade and maintenance.

The cloud ERP model is an economic, effective and scalable way to improve different business applications. To benefit in the long term, businesses need to analyze the benefits available with every deployment option.


Originally published at www.techpillar.com.

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