Manufacturing ERP and Salesforce Manufacturers who have moved to cloud ERP have found that the access to big data on demand leads to improved business intelligence, and they can use this information to coordinate and collaborate with every department at every step in the supply chain. As the leading cloud platform, Salesforce provides a stable and growing cloud ecosystem for manufacturers looking for cloud-based ERP solutions. In most cases, manufacturers want to choose a cloud ERP system is designed specifically for the Salesforce ecosystem and is 100 percent native to that platform, which means that their software runs 100 percent within Salesforce. The cloud ERP solution should support multiple companies, multiple divisions and multiple sites, all within a single tenant on the Salesforce platform. A powerful cloud ERP solution represents every step in the manufacturing process, increasing efficiencies, controlling costs and, ultimately, increasing revenue. Check to see if the ERP has modules for sales order management, purchase order management, production engineering, inventory management, lot and serial control, scheduling and capacity planning, shop floor control, material requirements planning (MRP), manufacturing cost control and project control modules. Since the development of the Salesforce ecosystem, manufacturing firms can take advantage of such cloud-based […]
What to Consider When Looking for a Cloud ERP Solution Regardless of which model you choose, there are important things your company must consider when shopping for a cloud solution such as cloud ERP. Cloud computing enables speed, agility and innovation. You must move from the drawing board to deployment. Can your organization adapt? Choose a cloud computing environment that’s right for your organization. Is a private cloud, public cloud or a hybrid cloud solution best for your company? Which vendors offer these solutions and will they be in business a year from now? Security remains a critical factor in considering cloud ERP solutions. Are you ready to extend your enterprise security policy to the cloud? Customization has always been an issue with ERP systems. Manufacturing firms must spend time determining how easy it is to customize and add enhancements to cloud ERP systems. Public cloud platforms such as Salesforce, offer significant advantages for IT departments, allowing them to easily provide their own customizations to the written natively on the public cloud platform. Stay tuned for the Conclusion!
Major Players in Cloud ERP As cloud computing continues to dominate the discussion of manufacturing ERP, several major players have emerged, with Salesforce becoming the premier platform. It’s no surprise that Amazon and Google are both vying to become big players in cloud computing. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an IaaS. NewsCorp plans to move 75 percent of its physical infrastructure into the AWS cloud over a three-year period. Info is one cloud ERP vendor based on AWS. Meanwhile, Google Cloud Platform is a set of modular cloud-based services that lets you to create anything from simple websites to complex applications. Google Cloud Platform’s list of products is smaller than AWS and focuses mainly on classic IaaS and PaaS services. Not to be outdone, Microsoft has released Azure, their cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. It provides both Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and supports different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. Some cloud ERP vendors are offered on Netsuite’s SuiteCloud platform, which offers customizability, but can be complicated and time-consuming to configure. […]
What the Analysts Say According to a recent study by Gartner, SaaS-based manufacturing and distribution software will increase from 22 percent in 2013 to 45 percent by 2023. Gartner predicts that the catalyst for much of this growth will be two-tier Cloud ERP system adoption. Gartner also predicted that, by 2016, “heavily customized ERP implementations will be routinely referred to as ‘legacy ERP.’ In its place will be a “more federated, loosely coupled ERP environment with much of the functionality sourced as cloud services or via business process outsourcers.” By 2018, at least 30 percent of service-centric companies will move the majority of their ERP applications to the cloud. The same study found that a total of 47 percent of organizations surveyed plan to move their core ERP systems to the cloud within five years, and 30 percent said that the majority of their ERP systems would be on-premises for the foreseeable future. Two-tier or hybrid cloud ERP solutions are attractive to companies who have invested great resources in their on-premise ERP systems. These firms see hybrid systems as a way to modernize their systems without abandoning their on-premise ERP system entirely – they can add compatible functionality or equip […]