In 1990 Michael Hammer wrote an excellent article in Harvard Business Review on Reengineering work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate. With several technological advances in recent years, including IoT, Blockchain, AI, Bots, AR becoming mainstream, basic tenets highlighted in this article still hold even in 2020. We are in for a second wave of reengineering the work and reimagining the processes. Adoption of ERP Cloud can be a step in that direction and help in building a solid foundation for digital transformation. 

Moving away from legacy ERP and implementation of Cloud ERP can be a bold digital strategy. Cloud ERP has the potential to transform the business functions across the enterprise and set a foundation to the next level of performance by seamlessly combining ERP with several new digital technologies such as IoT, AI, and Blockchain. However, such a move is mired with many pitfalls that must be avoided to realize the full potential of transformation initiatives. This is where a careful assessment of your requirements is required keeping ROI in view. 

 Objective analysis of fitment of the solution 

A mismatch between your requirements and capability of cloud ERP solution capability could be costly. This may also result in expensive customizations to avoid damage to the business. An assessment of needs and evaluation of new ERP system capabilities is a must to avoid the mismatch. Cloud Ascend automates the review of your requirements and provides an objective assessment of the fitment of Oracle ERP Cloud vis a vis Oracle EBS on-premise solution currently running. Cloud Ascend Platform not only automates the Oracle ERP Cloud assessment but also helps you find cost-benefits from our TCO workbench. 

Deployment options

Evaluate ERP Cloud deployment options carefully. Cloud ERP is most suitable and most cost-effective if you are willing to adopt out of box functionality and best practices. If your requirements are unique and cannot be addressed by out of box ERP Cloud, you may augment ERP Cloud with other best of breed solutions or custom applications to meet unique and differentiating requirements. Another option could be a hybrid cloud. However, a hybrid solution is typically more expensive, and they are also complex to implement and maintain.  Off late, we have started seeing a greater openness from customer to adopt Oracle ERP Cloud available on public cloud due to two reasons – firstly, SaaS product has matured a lot in the last decade and also there is a tremendous cost-saving as compared to on-premise EBS. 

 Redeployment of your IT Staff

Implementation of Oracle ERP Cloud would entail a wide-ranging change in the role of IT Staff of your organization. Many critical tasks performed by sysadmin and DBA will no longer require as they will shift to Oracle. Also, many of the technical staff have to learn new technologies prevalent in Oracle ERP Cloud. Organizations implementing Oracle ERP Cloud have to rethink, retrain, and redeploy its IT Staff within the new paradigm. Preparing your IT staff for the adoption of Oracle Cloud involves deep dive and understand controls and responsibilities for the deployment of Oracle ERP Cloud; enable your IT staff to know how their roles and tasks are likely to change; and encourage your IT staff to develop new skills required for Oracle ERP Cloud. You may also have to develop a strategy to redeploy employees made redundant due to the adoption of Oracle ERP Cloud.

 Adopting suitable method, technologies to ensure success

Implementing Oracle ERP Cloud means you are going to follow the “No Customizations” paradigm. Such an implementation is quite different from the traditional approaches followed in ERP implementation. The focus of ERP Cloud Implementation is around the application of out of box functionality available and exploiting the inherent capability of the ERP Cloud and achieving desired results through configurations. This approach is very different from the Classic method of gathering and analyzing requirements and building solutions to match them. Oracle ERP Cloud can be implemented in the much shorter timeframe following the lightweight methodology prescribed by Oracle. Oracle PaaS is a comprehensive, standards-based, fully integrated combination of Oracle and open source technologies that enable you to build, deploy, migrate, and manage a variety of different application workloads. Some of the services available within Oracle PaaS include Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC), Java Cloud services (JCS), which can be leveraged for integrating Oracle ERP Cloud with any other applications. Similarly, many of the complex reporting needs can be met through OTBI (oracle Transactional Business Intelligence) and Analytics Cloud, where one can design their reports and dashboard to support daily business decisions.

Another important dimension is Data migration when you implement Oracle Cloud ERP,  which is a challenging and complex task in any ERP Cloud project. Cleansing data lying in legacy ERP can be a daunting task and error-prone. Having a tool to automate the data migration process could be very helpful in this regard. Cloud Ascend platform also automates data migration for customers migrating from Oracle EBS to Oracle ERP Cloud. This tool is beneficial in transforming and cleansing data and delivers significant savings on overall data migration efforts. 

Do not underestimate Change Management

Change Management is going to be a bigger challenge and would need significant investment of time and effort. While the Oracle ERP Cloud provide modern user interface and experience, their adoption will entail significant change management to re-train end-users, managers, and support teams on it. If not more, effort is as big as you spent first time while implementing the ERP System. Organization moving to Oracle ERP Cloud should develop a complete track for change with intervention planned across project phases and adopting best practices such as train the trainers.

There are many advantages for companies in migrating to Oracle ERP Cloud – high scalability, consistent process, real-time financial reporting, and cost savings. However, a careful strategy for adoption and migration needs to be chalked out, keeping in view multiple factors. A carefully drafted migration strategy can go a long way in ensuring the success and results. Cloud Ascend’ s platform can assist in performing an objective assessment of ERP Cloud fitment to your unique and differentiating requirements using its product Assessment Workbench and in strategizing overall disposition. Cloud Ascend platform also automates data migration with its product Conversion Workbench, which would not only help in bringing down project efforts and costs, also improve the quality of deliverable.