Will the Digital world be the end of ERP?

The end of ERP.   As having lead multiple large complex ERP project s all over the world , the headline really caught my attention.

The postulate is that

“In a digital world, business success is defined by agility and speed. Legacy ERP tools have been stopping your business from achieving its full potential.”

End or ERP…really?

The strengths of ERP systems, is to have a complete Enterprise-wide framework that seamless works together and a share data and Business Processes. For this to work there needs to be a common set of rules and where ever there is a common set up rules there will be people (functions) that love the rules and those that do not like the rules.

Translated to business functionality, some business processes are well adopted and liked, and some are facing harsh resistance from the users as they are either time-consuming, considered unnecessary, or difficult to operate.

What is so special with the digital world?

I 100% agree that in the digital world, agility and speed is important. It is  today expected that all information is easily available, in the form the user requires, when they require it and any request that a user makes, gets an immediate response.

I believe users always have wanted a quick response and transparency, but until now technology has not been easy available and affordable to the regular consumer to drive mass expectations.

TODAY technology is available and it is no longer a Nice-to-have but a Must-have if to survive. 

So what is the need for ERP systems in a digital world?

Well, mobile applications and digital solution needs… data...and data comes from transactions and transactions come from users or machine input.

For a seamless experience to be seamless the transactions need to be seamless and that is what ERP systems can provides, an Enterprise-wide seamless interconnected framework.

But ERP projects always fails and makes business less agile. 

Well. Proper run ERP projects do not fail. Because ERP projects and often very complex and impact core business processes and large number of users, some large projects do fails. But there are many reasons for the failure and often it comes down to the skills and experience of the Project Manager :-)

ERP system vendors are aware the business requirements of the digital world for agility and more adaptable ERP solutions.  Great example is SAP dedicated focus on a cloud-enabled S4/HANA ERP solutions and the launch of the Agile SAP Activate implementation methodology.

Same trends is seen in Oracle and Microsoft and you can today get fully cloud hosted ERP solutions.

In conclusion

the Digital world is not the end for ERP solutions but it is the start of more agile and adaptable ERP solutions.  And those ERP providers that does not change and adopt wil likely see the sale of their ERP software decline…