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The ERP landscape seems to be changing exponentially and almost

daily. Staying up to date on these ERP trends can seem impossible for
CIOs and other technology decision-makers. To help navigate the
path, here are seven ERP developments to keep an eye on in 2017 and
beyond.

1. Cloud goes mainstream - The cloud has been a hot topic


for a number of years, with companies moving applications to the
cloud for speed to execution, lower costs, higher level of service
and/or preservation of capital. Analysts predicted a continued increase
in organizations shifting to some form of the cloud. Most may adopt a
hybrid model, mixing cloud provider services with their in-house
cloud computing platform.
However leading researcher Gartner, predicted a near 100 % fail rate
for cloud ERP projects by 2018! Ninety per cent of those rolling out
what the mega-analyst has defined as post-modern ERP will
succumb to the traditional ERP headaches of higher costs, greater
complexity and failed integration by 2018. Their Achilles Heel will be
lack of an application integration strategy and related skills.

Gartner defined post-modern ERP as systems that are federated and


loosely coupled and no longer from a single, monolithic provider
such as Oracle or SAP. Theres a dawning recognition that post-
modern ERP is no quick nirvana with companies moving from on-
premise to cloud, lacking little or no skills to integrate applications.
Mistakenly, they assume the vendors peddling cloud will take care of
it. When inevitably they don't, customers are the ones left
scrambling. Hence careful application of integration strategy,
understanding and commitment is required by companies going in for
cloud strategy, to ensure success.
2. Need based or Subscription pricing - Competitive
pressures and new efficiencies will cause enterprise software pricing
to continue to shift further toward subscription models, rather than
large lump sum licensing or costly preloads on proprietary hardware,
enterprise software will be increasingly priced on a per-user and/or
per-year basis.

3. Mobile CRM and other enterprise mobile apps


will take off - Salesforce set the stage for this trend with
investments in their mobile app and getting their integration partners
to use it. Mobile will continue to be a crucial battleground for the
larger CRM players, bringing their mobile app functionality closer to
the level of their main Web product.

As employees spend less and less time in the office, having solutions
CRM, BPM, etc. that are mobile friendly will be essential,
Analysts opine that to succeed in the enterprise, solutions must
prioritize the needs and behavior of mobile workers in their design, to
ensure they are connected wherever they are, and are able to
communicate and collaborate with colleagues back at the office.

4. In-memory computing will become a leading


differentiator in ERP. In-memory computing approaches like
SAP HANA and Oracle In-Memory Applications will become the
main battleground area for ERP product differentiation, especially in
the large enterprise space, predicts Glenn Johnson, senior vice
president, Americas, Magic Software Enterprises, a provider of
application platforms, enterprise mobility and business integration
solutions. As market noise around Big Data continues, ERP brands
that fail to offer in-memory computing solutions will fade when
compared with leaders in this area.
5. Deeper ERP Integration -

SAP is working on its strategy of simplifying and integrating its


portfolio of products to serve its Clientele better. For instance, after
the acquisition of Hybris in 2013, SAP has gradually realigned their
strategy in CRM solution space mainly to taken on the market leader
SalesForce.com which is a cloud based solution. In a bid to be more
competitive and future focused, SAP has now consolidated their CRM
solutions under Hybris brand with Customer Engagement and
Commerce.SAP is shifting towards cloud based CRM solutions rather
than traditional on-premise CRM.

The SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Strategic Enterprise Management


and Internet Transaction Server were also merged into SAP ECC,
allowing users to run them under one instance. Architectural changes
were also made to support an enterprise service architecture to
transition customers to a services-oriented architecture.

Leading IT company, Microsoft is also unifying all its business


applications. Breaking down the artificial silos of ERP and CRM it
will deliver new purpose-built applications in the cloud to deliver next
generation intelligent business applications. With Dynamics 365,
Customers can now manage specific business processes in a single
platform including Sales, Customer Service, Field Service,
Operations, Project Service Automation, Financials and Marketing.

Also with Microsoft Power BI, Cortana Intelligence, and Azure


Machine Learning built in, Dynamics 365 helps companies turn big
data into actionable plans. Dynamics 365 helps organizations
empower people to achieve more by giving them proven processes,
familiar tools and intelligent guidance to take the next best actionso
they can do their best work.

That increased integration and depth will continue to blur the lines
between enterprise software systems and help organizations derive
greater value from their IT investments.

6. Open source will continue to gain ground - Data


warehousing and BI has long been the domain of proprietary software
concentrated across a handful of vendors, however, the last 10 years
has seen the emergence and increasing prevalence of Hadoop and
subsequently Spark as lower-cost open source alternatives that deliver
the scale and sophistication needed to gain insights from Big Data.
Analysts believe, open source software will continue to gain a
foothold in the enterprise space.

The Hadoop-related ecosystem is projected to be $25 billion by 2020,


And Spark is now distributed by 10-plus vendors, including SAP,
Oracle, Microsoft, and Teradata, with support for all major BI tools,
including Tableau, Qlik and MicroStrategy.

7. Business Intelligence software will become


more visual and easier to use- "BI solutions will look as
good as they operate, and will operate as good as they look," says
James Richardson, business analytics strategist, Qlik, a provider of
business intelligence and data visualization software. Enterprise
customers have been asking for BI solutions that are easier to use
self-service solutions. And visualization is key to this, he explains.
By rendering data in easy-to-read graphs and charts, users will be
able to understand their data in a way that is natural to them, breaking
down the barriers between people and their data.

8. Social intelligence gets even smarter - Having


powerful, cloud-based platforms allows companies to use predictive
analytics and analyze business operations more closely. Previously,
the use of sophisticated analytics was limited to bigger organizations,
such as Walmart. But in 2017, the analytics capabilities enabled by
running on cloud software will be increasingly accessible to small
and, especially, medium-sized companies as they make larger
investments in data analysis to effectively run their companies.
Analysts predict that, more companies will adopt products such as
SAP S/4HANA in their effort to embrace analytics and improve
collaboration.

9. Birth of the "Intelligent ERP" - ERP trends also include


systems that will give far more guidance than ERP systems of the
past. These systems will use new technologies, such as machine
learning, cloud deployment and predictive analytics to manage data.

IDC, the premier market intelligence firm opines, that digital


transformation is reshaping many software applications, including
marketing automation, service and support, commerce, sales, and, in
particular, ERP. Among other things, an assistive and conversational
user interface will become a primary differentiator in the selection of
many ERP systems and associated applications. These interfaces and
the underlying intelligence, which are predicted to appear within ERP,
will be game changers.
10. Need for better ERP security- More regulations,
rising security threats and evolving technologies, including
increasingly connected and sophisticated ERP platforms, have
resulted in application security becoming more critical and even more
complex to manage. Thus Cybersecurity will increasingly become a
very strong focus area for Customers while implementing ERP
applications.

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