How Cloud ERP Creates Competitive Advantage

Version-Locked vs Version-Less

Leveraging the advancements in technology to gain a competitive advantage is nothing new in today's business world, but when was the last time you examined your ERP system under the same lens? The pace of business is changing; organizations simply cannot afford to move at yesterday's speed, and much of today's demands fall on process efficiency. However, according to Forrester Research, "approximately half of ERP customers are on releases that are two versions behind the current release, which may be four years old or more." That statistic alone indicates that a large chunk of the marketplace is running on technology that was created when fax machines were still widely relevant and e-mail was just a novelty. The version-locked ERP of yesteryear is fundamentally incompatible with the current structure for success, and it should come as no surprise then that only four percent of today's IT leaders feel that their ERP system offers a competitive advantage for their organization.

Version-locked ERP is plaguing many businesses today. The aging, on-premise system grows farther out of alignment with the needs of the organization every day, with no updates for new regulations or integrations to the latest e-commerce platform, stagnant behind a buildup of customizations and manual connect-the-data spreadsheets. Before you know it, the business finds itself in a quicksand situation, stuck in place by an ERP system that isn't evolving with the pace of business and being swallowed by a market that demands continual progression.

Regardless of industry, businesses remaining relevant in today's economy are growing more distributed, spanning across geographies like never before, and mobility has become a key driver in performance. But in large, organizations are hesitant to implement business applications built on a similarly dispersed, accessible platform. Old ERP was designed before mobile devices and connect-anywhere capability, when business never left the office, but performance beyond the PC is the foundation of the cloud. If the current structure for success is accessibility and fluidity in an elastic workforce, what better platform than the cloud to drive your business processes forward?

Combining the agility and dispersed access enabled through the cloud with the real-time data of an efficient ERP system creates a true competitive advantage for your business - empowering staff across your organization to collaborate and align with business objectives, regardless of their location and independent of your IT resources. Cloud ERP frees businesses from the inflexible, change resistant ERP of the past. They can run on a system that is essentially version-less, with automatic updates to new features and functionality, migrating any customizations with each upgrade. In short, version-less cloud ERP enables businesses to experience today's innovation while continuously aligning their ERP needs with their evolving business operating environment. 

Click here to read more about cloud ERP and "The 8 Ways Outdated ERP Damages Your Business."