21st Century ERP: Why Organizations Are Moving to the Cloud
“I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster… carrying around these non- connected computers is byzantine by comparison.” – Steve Jobs, late chairman of Apple (1997)
Organizations across the world are moving their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to the cloud. With a plethora of benefits and the ease that cloud solutions bring, it is a no brainer. We hear about these benefits all of the time: cost savings, deployment options, collaboration, security, flexibility.
Web-based solutions are of the past. A 21st Century ERP solution is one that is born in the cloud.
Let’s take a deeper dive into 5 benefits of cloud ERP:
Cost – Think about how much money organizations are spending on hardware, labor, maintenance, and support costs. Compare that to what data centers are charging for their services. With ‘farms’ of servers, economies of scale allows for organizations to take advantage of significant cost savings by moving to the cloud. To calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) for an On-Premise ‘in house’ system all costs must be considered: direct, indirect, and hidden. Do your homework! The numbers don’t lie. 
Collaboration – Work from anywhere with anyone in your organization or even across organizations and on any device. It is not too good to be true! Imagine being able to work in real-time on a document and collaborate with your peers, all while sitting in the airport. Cloud systems maximize collaboration and allow for work to be done with ease and on the fly.
Deployment – With Cloud ERP you have options on where to deploy your system. Whether you host your solution On-Premise, in the private or public Cloud, it comes down to your choice of preference. Legacy applications do not give these options. Deployment is a strategic decision where you must know your business, analyze demands, and understand which would best help foster growth for your organization.
Security – Leaders within organizations are beginning to realize that there is simply no comparison between the security that data centers can provide compared to a local server. Disaster relief, data redundancy, and the manpower that data centers provide greatly outweighs any security a local server or small IT staff can provide. Physical control of your data and being able to physically see your servers does not imply security.
Flexibility – Cloud based solutions maximize business growth. Imagine your organization is rapidly growing and on its way to going public. You need an ERP system that is going to facility and foster that growth. By simply increasing you resource level within a Cloud solution your ERP will grow with your company while maintaining reasonable cost. With this power you can also scale your ERP system when needed, which also allows for increasing or decreasing your resource level during seasonal business months throughout the year.
Written by Alex Padua, Strategic Account Manager at DSD Business Systems.
