Monday, May 9, 2016

Why & How to take decision on the Migration of ERP?

In today’s fast moving world which is full of innovations, technology is moving at highest pace. Businesses are going through transformation due to adoptions of these innovations in different areas such as automation of processes, communication, market outlook, R&D etc. Sooner or later businesses are forced to adopt these changes. ERP is also not different than any other technology platform, ERP software companies also keep on upgrading their products. Justifying the cost of upgradation or adoption is challenge as businesses have already spent money on the stabilization of older versions. 

Following points can help you to answer why:
  • Is your software quite old and you find it tough to get the resources to support it?
  • Is the software supported by the OEM for the upgrades and support?
  • Check out the roadmap of the version release of the software from OEM.
  • Are you planning to upgrade your hardware? If yes, your software should support latest platforms.
  • Has your business grown over a period, what are new business need raised during this period?
  • If you have gone through the questionnaire mentioned above, and answer is yes. Now it is the time to plan for a software upgrade for your ERP. 
Some of the latest version recently upgraded by the major companies are:
  • SAP
    • ECC 6.0 SP19
  • Oracle
    • Oracle EBS 12.2.5 a major leap from Oracle E-Business Suite 11i or R12.1.3
    • Oracle database 12c, supporting cloud
  • Microsoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics Navision 2016 from MSD NAV 2015 & MSD NAV 2013 R2 or MSD NAV 2009
    • Microsoft Dynamics AX 2016 V7 from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012,2015

I have tried to accumulate few of the best practices adopted by companies globally for migration. This will help you in better planning of your migration project to maximise benefits. Few of the points are:
  • Read out the complete documentation on the enhancements has been done for technology & functional aspects.
  • Ask your team/consultant to prepare a check list on these enhancements
  • Prepare a document on the business processes or technology enhancements applicable for your business process.
  • Please note that there might be certain functional enhancements which you might have done through customizations. We will recommend to go for the implementation of these functional enhancements and scrap the customizations.
  • Ask your team/consultant to prepare a SWOT analysis for every enhancement in terms of your vision for your organization.
  • You need to take a holistic approach for migration of the historical data. The informed decision has to be a justified call in the benefits of fresh implementation vs migration of historical data. There are tools available such as Business Analysis ( Qlikview, OBICS, NAVCUBE etc.) which can help you consolidation of historical data & fresh implementation.
About Author: 

Mr. Anubhav Maheshwari is an enterprise application veteran having 18 year experience in managing multiple segments and roles in IT and business. While working with top 5 IT companies Anubhav has implemented different applications across verticals worldwide.


In his last assignment as a National channel sales manager in Oracle India, he was responsible for creating a enterprise application market through Tier-1 and Tier-2 partners.




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