4 Great Reasons to UPGRADE YOUR ERP SYSTEM

Transcription

1 4 Great Reasons to UPGRADE YOUR ERP SYSTEM

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 Your current ERP version has reached the end of maintenance 5 There are many standard functionalities that can replace your custom code needs 7 Your ERP version does not support next generation technology 9 Your current ERP offers a poor user experience page 2

3 CHAPTER 1 Your Current ERP Version has Reached the End of Maintenance Every ERP system has a calendar of maintenance. You should know when your current ERP release reaches the end of maintenance. Once end of maintenance hits, you should expect no more fixes from the vendor. That s it, kaput. You can always call an outside professional to help you, but it will cost more and more over time as your ERP version expiration date passes. Think of the consumer computer market. Updating accounting software on Windows 95 will cost more time and money than on Windows 8. The second cost - which is even bigger - is for the extended maintenance fees that you will have to pay the vendor for any disruptions and errors that occur on your system. page 3

4 CHAPTER 1 There Are No Free Lunches When You Choose Not to Upgrade Your ERP Keep an eye out for your ERP vendor s end of lifecycle schedule. What is now years away will slowly creep up. Start planning when the next upgrade is embraced by the market. page 4

5 There Are Many Standard Functionalities That Can Replace Your Custom Code Needs CHAPTER 2 When you bought an ERP system, the promise was that you signed up in order to gain ongoing access to the market s best practices that your vendor would provide. As you can imagine, in order for you to gain access to the latest and greatest of the market s best practices, and to keep up to date with compliance, you should be aligned with the maintenance velocity of your vendor. In addition, over time, more and more standard functionalities are added to ERP systems. What once required custom code is now a standard functionality. It may be cheaper to upgrade your ERP system with all that entails rather than create custom code for new functionalities since the maintenance of that code is 100% on you until time immemorial. page 5

6 CHAPTER 2 What About Your Existing Custom Code? Your ultimate goal is to run a change ready ERP system. Custom code is a sack of rocks on your ERP system and it affects your ability to perform effective change to your ERP. Replacing custom code with standard functionality makes your ERP leaner and meaner and boosts your ERP fitness score. You will be doing your company a favor by taking a time-out from other projects, upgrading your ERP and migrating custom code back to standard. page 6

7 Your ERP Version Does Not Support Next Generation Technology CHAPTER 3 Every few years, new technologies come along that change the way we interact with the business. Mobile is a great example. Does your current ERP system support mobile? And if it does, at what level? The latest versions of SAP, Oracle EBS and JD Edwards will offer a lot more mobile features and support than older versions. Another next generation technology that older ERP versions won t have is big data analytics. New ERP systems will collect and aggregate information in ways the older systems never did. You will gain more visibility to your business. One of the biggest trends in technology for business today is embracing cloud applications that add agility to business. Past ERP versions do not support integration between ERP and the cloud. For example, supporting WSDL is an important component in any integration to cloud applications. page 7

8 CHAPTER 3 If information is power, then upgrading your ERP is great ammo! A third new technology is security. A good rule of thumb goes as follows - the more updated your ERP system, the better the security. page 8

9 CHAPTER 4 Your Current ERP Offers a Poor User Experience Could you imagine using a 90s ERP system today? Imagine what it would be like for your less tech-savvy users to use a legacy ERP interface? Here s the truth that ERP has to confront: Mobile has raised user experience expectations. Every user sees himself as a Steve Jobs in training with UI expertise. ERP just can t get away with ugly GUIs anymore. Need another reason? page 9

10 CHAPTER 4 A Better User Experience Leads to Better Productivity SAP Fiori is a great example. Fiori adds a personalized, responsive UX to SAP. You just can t compare it to SAP without Fiori. SAP makes a strong case that Fiori improves user productivity. But guess what? You need to be on EHP7 in order to upgrade to Fiori! Your next ERP upgrade will enable you to improve the user experience, which will lead to higher productivity. page 10

11 All Together Now Now take look at the 4 signs that it is time to upgrade your ERP system. Check the ones that you agree with: Your current ERP version has reached the end of maintenance There are many standard functionalities that can replace your custom code needs Your ERP version does not support next generation technology Your current ERP offers a poor user experience How many of these did you mark? 1 of them If you marked 2 or more It s time to have a talk with your IT team You need to upgrade your ERP system!

12 Thank You! Panaya can help you to upgrade your ERP system by letting you know what will break, how to fix it and what to test before you perform changes. Experience Panaya for yourself with a free trial. Panaya CloudQuality Suite disrupts the risk, time and costs required to deliver all types of SAP, Oracle EBS, and Salesforce changes. We are passionate about the need to make your ERP more agile and align it with your business. Powered by big data analytics and aggregating since 2008, Panaya CloudQuality Suite delivers insights that tell you what will break, how to fix it and what to test. It is constantly improving and finding smarter ways to perform everything from day-to-day maintenance to major projects. 1,220 companies in 62 countries, including a third of the Fortune 500, use the Panaya CloudQuality Suite to enhance and maintain their enterprise apps without skipping a beat.