FEATURE: ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
choice because they need both EAM and ERP
to drive optimal business performance.
Some organisations opt for so-called ‘best of
breed’ EAM and ERP solutions from different
providers. Yet integration can be a headache.
The challenges include master data
synchronisation and transaction integration.
The company may also need to consider
whether the ERP or EAM system is the better
fit for a particular transaction or asset type.
However, for most organisations in asset-
intensive industries, the ideal solution is an
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ERP system with extensive EAM capabilities
– a system built from the ground up to
manage not only basic business functions
but also assets and their maintenance. Such
a solution provides one complete solution
spanning key processes and data.
This approach enables the organisation
to truly manage and maximise value over
asset lifecycles.
It also empowers the enterprise to organise
operations around the assets and individual
asset objects it uses to create value for
stakeholders, customers and the community.
Five ways Enterprise Resource
Planning changed last year
Oludare Ogunlade, Sales
Director, West Africa
Applications at Oracle, looks
at how Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) has changed
in the past year.
T
he ability to keep up with the
unprecedented pace of business
change, such as implementing the latest
best practices and innovations on a regular
basis, is something that is fairly new to
the back-office environment. In the old
world of on-premise (licenced) systems,
it was unthinkable to update ERP at such
pace – years would pass between upgrades,
and with every passing year the risk of
the business falling behind competitors
continues to grow.
The majority of respondents in our ERP
Trends Survey listed the ability to address this
challenge as one of the key benefits of moving
ERP to the cloud. In this new operating model,
innovation would be rolled out to the finance
function several times a year by a cloud
provider – dropping the risk of technology
obsolescence to zero and putting the business
on a more solid competitive footing.
Cloud ERP is the new standard
Historically, the perceived effort of migrating
a core financial system has left ERP as one
of the last technology systems running on
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premise. Yet the vast majority of survey
participants find that the benefits of such a
move outweigh the potential pitfalls, with just
over half of respondents already running ERP
in the cloud or planning to do so within the
next 12 months. A further 25% said that they
plan to do the same within, or after two years.
Economics, innovation the
primary drivers
With the average age of an on-premise ERP
system approaching 20 years, respondents
cited economic considerations, including
avoiding infrastructure investments and
lowering the total cost of ownership, as
key considerations for making the switch.
However, while economic motivations are
a primary driver, the continuous innovation
that comes with the cloud also plays a
significant role.
Being always up to date
In one of the more surprising discoveries
by the survey, it was found that while
organisations initially thought they were
moving to the cloud for economic benefits,
finance leaders have since found that the
competitive advantage gained through
having access to always-new technology
outweighed everything else.
Emerging tech to
transform finance
The cloud is the primary delivery mechanism
for new and emerging technologies:
For most asset-intensive companies, delivering
EAM capabilities as part and parcel of an
integrated ERP solution, simplifies their
business systems landscape, giving them a
single source of truth. The same arguments
apply to project management and workforce
management systems.
Organisations seeking to transform their
business by standardising processes and
leveraging reliable, real-time data will
benefit from an ERP system with all of these
capabilities, setting them up to adopt IoT,
Artificial Intelligence, or whatever other new
technologies are coming up next. n
Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Machine
Learning, Cognitive Computing, Intelligent
Process Automation, and the Internet
of Things (IoT). Finance professionals
are exhibiting a keen interest in these
technologies, and – in keeping with their
desire for innovation and new capabilities –
roughly four out of 10 are already exploring
these areas.
Delivering more
meaningful insight
While the majority of respondents are
generating reports directly from ERP systems,
nearly half still make use of spreadsheets,
with data pulled directly from systems
of record. This indicates that the reports
delivered by current ERP systems are not
delivering meaningful insights, and that
additional, ad hoc analysis becomes
necessary to find answers. With cloud, CFOs
can analyse data, perform what-if scenarios
– a key benefit of EPM cloud applications
– and uncover new possibilities and even
create new business models.
Switching to a cloud-based ERP application
is an opportunity for companies to re-invent
and transform their business processes. CFOs
and finance leaders will be well-positioned
to lead this transformation, with this next
generation of ERP equipping them to be
more strategic and provide meaningful
insight and guidance to the business.
With the pace of business change
accelerating, finance leaders recognise
that they can no longer rely on the tools of
the past to keep up with the competition.
The right ERP cloud not only provides new
capabilities, it is a vehicle to deliver a regular
cadence of new and innovative technologies
going forward. n
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