Cloud ERP How to select right Cloud ERP system

How to select right Cloud ERP system

Planning to move to a Cloud ERP system? But not decided yet which one? You will find lots of literature on best Cloud ERP system on internet, but it might not prove best for your business conditions. Instead search for right cloud ERP system for your business.

Here is a quick guideline to help you decide right cloud ERP system for your business.

Gather Business Requirement for Cloud ERP system

To come up with business need first gauge where you are now and what you want to achieve by implementing Cloud ERP system.

As Is System: Do you have currently an on-premise ERP, a hosted ERP system or no ERP at all? Pen down all difficulties and challenges you are facing with your existing on-premise/ hosted / no ERP setup. You should clearly identify the issues and business impact of each of those. This will help you to create a strong business case document for moving to cloud ERP system.

What to achieve with Cloud ERP system: Now for each of business impact identified in earlier step, write down what business goal you would like achieve in that area. For example you identified that you have to huge team to maintain your current on-premise ERP system and business impact is high manpower cost then your business goal could be to reduce manpower cost by at least 30%. Similarly you identify business goal for each of business areas like

  • Cost
  • Time to market
  • Quality of product
  • Stakeholder Confidence
  • Revenue
  • Profitability

Once you write down your business goals it clearly gives your expectations to select right cloud ERP system for you. Based on earlier example, one of requirement is upcoming cloud ERP systems should be able to provide manpower cost reduction of at least 30%.

Your cloud ERP requirement should be in Time, Material & Distance format that is what you want to achieve, by when and how will you measure its fulfillment. Also take approval on budget allocated for cloud ERP implementation and decide on desired timeline.

Understand that selecting a right vendor is a time consuming process followed by actual timeframe required for implementation. Unless you are clear about your requirements and expectation you will be wasting every body’s time and money.

Study Cloud ERP market

Once you have identified all business requirements new Cloud ERP system should fulfill it is time to be on field now. Your partners in search are internet, business magazines, industry peers, industry tech news tracker portals & magazines, industry tech consultants.

Gather all the information from these resources available based on following points:

  • List of cloud ERP vendors in market
  • Vendors who have done cloud ERP implementation in your industry
  • Market segment they specialize in – Large clients, mid-sized businesses, small businesses
  • Technical Specifications
  • Modules and Features on offer
  • Custom requirements implementation policy & support
  • Cloud ERP solution Deployment time
  • Solution Implementation Case studies
  • Customer Testimonials
  • Post Purchase Support
  • Licensing model & pricing
  • Maintenance Cost
  • Software version upgrade policy
  • Disaster Recovery Mechanism
  • Exit Policy and support during exit

Prepare a list of side by side comparison of all vendors based on above points.

Evaluate & shortlist Cloud ERP vendors

After preparing comparison matrix, your next step is to evaluate. Shortlist vendors catering to your industry, size of business, relevant case studies and client testimonials. Go through functionalities and features offered by these shortlisted vendors available online & offline material. Cross check against your functional requirements. Also check for their pricing against your budget and further shortlist no more than 3 vendors.

Now time for real business. Contact vendor team and ask for a demo or a Free Trial account. Once you ensure that the vendor solution fulfills your functional requirements, meet the vendor team and get clarity on important aspects like post purchase support, deployment time, migration plan from existing cloud ERP system to vendor solution, version upgrade policy, support for custom requirement implementation & support in case of exit. Negotiate for best package for you.

Purchase

Your next step, after which you are contented with the their specifications, their demo, their pricing and their requirements are good to go, what you need to do is to try them out, after all that’s why you went through all those steps above, go for the best price and the provider that will deliver your service just the way you planned it.

Best of luck and take a 15 days Free Trial of our Cloud ERP solution!

Cloud ERP Blog Author

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rameez

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