Choosing Cloud ERP solutions? Consider these key areas..

In a recent study conducted by a leading research organisation, small and mid-sized business owners were asked about the most important drivers that were influencing their decisions about moving critical business infrastructure to the cloud.
Not surprisingly many of the drivers were relating to cost – cost control, cost minimisation and the cost of maintaining IT infrastructure.

In fact the top two areas which rated 38% or more for these business leaders were around reducing IT account headcount or enabling the redeployment of IT staff for other business processes.

The drivers for Cloud-based solutions

But what are the primary considerations if you don’t currently have full-time IT resources on staff nor do you plan to add those resources. Well, if you’re like most small businesses that I speak with then there’s a good chance that you are concerned about how you can take advantage of new technologies such as cloud computing without employing internal resources to help drive these initiatives.

This is where there have been significant enhancements may made in the core business solutions that the majority of businesses are looking to deploy in the cloud such as CRM, ERP and HR management can help these businesses.

However, the three top considerations that I have seen as critical when deploying these solutions in the cloud are not necessarily the ones that immediately spring to mind around security, technology platforms or cost.

In my experience the top three things that are small or mid-size business needs to consider are

1. Organisational readiness
2. Change management
3. Selection process

Big Bang approaches to the deployment of these solutions in a cloud-based or on premises model are fraught with peril and should be approached in a staged manner.
The primary area to focus on should be qualifying the main benefit areas in the business and this can only be done by bringing your team together to determine how ready your company is to make the change, where the key areas of resistance to change will be and what the key criteria are for the solution.

I recently worked with a firm of engineers who went through multiple iterations during a selection process including very detailed evaluations at a functional level of what was needed and what the various solutions provided only to choose the final hour to delay the project. Whilst frustrating for me as the person tasked to help organisations like this choose a new solution (preferably from me) for this particular organisation I believe it was the right choice as they were not ready in 2 of these core areas.

The bottom line is that when choosing a new solution, ideally you need to work with an organisation that understands these factors and can help you make the right decision and help you justify that decision with facts no matter whether the decision is to move ahead, delay or stay with existing technologies and solutions.

At Leverage Technologies our focus is on shared success and we have learned from our share of scenarios where a client has moved ahead with a solution without carefully mapping each of these three areas and realised the problems that this can cause.

So you can be sure that we will help you come to the right decision and to help you do that we have put together an information which includes not only information about products but also information about processes and checklists you can use to help you as you go through the process.

Click here to access the information kit and resources or if you would like to speak with one of our business analysts please call our team on 1300 045046