By: Katie Foley
In the ERP business we’ve seen the trend gradually shift from on-premise deployment to SaaS over the past 20 years or so. While the trends vary industry to industry, we’ve seen COVID-19 accelerate this migration from on-premise to the cloud.
The top two contributing factors to the migration taking place now is (1) the cloud is built for remote access and (2) the cloud offers a much lower upfront investment than a traditional on-premise model. With many employees working remotely, the transition from office to home office is smoother with the cloud. Also, for the many companies impacted financially by the pandemic, but still looking to increase productivity and efficiency and to grow the business, the cloud offers a more attractive initial buy-in.
Another attractive feature of the cloud ERP model is the flexibility it provides. All of the data and software is hosted in the “cloud” (aka on the servers provided by a 3rd party hosting company) so there is no requirement for expensive computer equipment or the IT team’s manpower to keep everything running smoothly. So whether your employees are working from home, in the office, or a mix of both, all of your data and reports can be accessed remotely in real time allowing for business intelligence informed business decisions to be made at anytime.
Just because there is a lower upfront cost to a cloud based solution, does not mean that the system is any less sophisticated. The cloud based ERP solution can help your business from its early days as a start up and stay with it as it grows. You can also add on modules or integrate with other solutions (business intelligence, advanced planning and scheduling, CAD, etc.) just as you could with any on-premise system.
If we’ve learned anything from the COVID-19 crisis, it’s that anything threat could be lurking around the corner and we must be prepared. The cloud provides best-in-class data security and doesn’t require hours and hours of your IT team’s time to maintain a modern data security system.
So what if you have already invested in an on-premise system, but you’d like to move to the cloud model? At Visibility we have a proven model for a speedy move from on-premise to the cloud. We start by setting up test and production environments on the cloud and copying your on premise database to the cloud. Then we will work with you to identify any custom modifications or reports that you may need copied to the cloud. Next, it’s time to test! This is something your team can perform on its own or something our project management team can walk you through step by step. Once all tests are complete, a Go Live date is scheduled and your team is off and running in the new cloud infrastructure!
Whether you are an existing Visibility customer, on a different system, or brand new to ERP, click here to learn if Visibility’s cloud based ERP solution is right for your organization’s needs.