I believe that it is never too late and I do not believe it is too early
FEATURE
How Epicor is restructuring to offer choice of ERP on cloud
A key requirement is to extend new cloud based ERP into suppliers , customers , employees , outside the organisation .
Technology , the millennial workforce , and high percentage of small and medium businesses , are the principal drivers for the transformation happening to ERP applications across Africa and Middle East . For the new workforce , a combination of social , mobile , cloud is the new normal , and they expect the same experience to extend into the workplace and with coworkers .
Epicor is taking traditional ERP that used to exist within the four walls of an organisation , and is using various tools and technologies , to extend it outside the same four walls of the organisation . Another key requirement is to be able to extend the new cloud based ERP into suppliers , customers , and employees outside the organisation .
Even within the supply chain business process , Epicor ’ s core area of expertise , there is an industry expectation to move beyond just-in-time manufacturing to real-time manufacturing . This requires much higher levels of integration and collaboration leading to improved demand forecasting .
Cloud based applications bring with them
I believe that it is never too late and I do not believe it is too early
certain key benefits . They are easier to integrate and interoperate amongst each other . Another key advantage is once set up by the vendor they do not need to be managed by the customer . Are ERP applications inherently not suited for the cloud ? Sabby Gill , Executive Vice President , Epicor International , likens ERP on the cloud with e-commerce applications that require a mix of cloud based technologies and manual intervention to complete the end to end business process .
“ We do not see that to be any different from the way cloud applications are deployed ,” Gill points out , equating ERP on the cloud to any other cloud based enterprise application . Epicor
ERP is today integrated with Salesforce . com and other cloud based ERPs and extended applications . “ Cloud makes it a lot easier than would be if it were on premise .”
In order to prepare for opportunities around its cloud based ERP solutions , Epicor has restructured itself internally . It has adopted a dual-pronged approach in its local organisations across Africa and Middle East region . Internally it has created partner account managers and customer account managers . The partner account manager is responsible for end to end relationships with channel partners . They are advocates for channel partners within Epicor .
The customer account managers on the other hand is responsible for the full spectrum of the end customer relationship . This covers the original sale , through to implementation , through to continued support and any other issues that come up . “ That whole structure is really the two-pronged approach and probably more relevant for this region than anywhere else ,” explains Gill .
Externally channel partners fill a void
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