The future of companies using ERP solutions continue to look brighter, seamless and sophisticated. Needless to say, with ERP global trends, organisations are expected to improve their efficiency in how they run as well as how they are run. Top in the list of the global ERP trends include:
More embrace in cloud computing
In 2017 and afterwards, ERP clients are expected to embrace cloud computing. Traditionally ERP client companies had to budget for hardware, data storage and onsite networking. Today however they do not have to rely on on-premise data storage, operating systems and networking. ERP SaaS (software as a service) will see them save more by using cloud computing.
Additionally, cloud based network providers such as Microsoft, HP, AWS will also have to make internal changes to accommodate cloud based ERP.
EP security will tighten
In the past few years, organizations have been focused on ERP installation, usage and training. As they were doing this, cyber criminals were not asleep; they were trying thick and thin to learn and hack their systems. With the increase in sophistication in data breaches, ERP providers will need to streamline security for data saved in the cloud. Security in access to admin panels, vital financial data as well as personnel files need to be looked into otherwise hacking and cyber crimes will increase.
Mobile ERP
Today most of the company executives are millenials. As revealed in Mashable, these millenials are a bunch of the most unruly and carefree people. They do not want to stay in the office all day long. They want to work remotely from the office as they enjoy a vacation at the coastal lands. They however require real-time reports, business analytics and communication despite being away from their work areas. Mobile ERP will therefore come in very handy for them.
Social ERP
With the trending fanfare of how social media is important to a company, many businesses especially those that target an online audience will incorporate social ERP to automate their social media updates, posts, audience engagement and boosts. Email marketing softwares and auto responders such as Aweber and Mailchimp will also be adopted.
ERP for small businesses
Traditionally, ERP has been seen as automation software for the big shot companies. However, moving forward in 2017 and beyond, small companies will adopt small business specific ERPs since they have already seen how far it can take them.
IoT
The Internet of things will surely be a much sought for game changer in the ERP world. Diverse data about a company will be brought together to generate a report. With the IoT for example, the printing out of an invoice would also lead to the procurement getting a call to restock as well as the sales manager being informed that a product has been sold in their department.
With this Internet of things, companies will be making a lot of analysis from a simple operation at their desk.
Structuring of the unstructured data
With social ERP, it is hard to automatically analyze comments and audience engagement. There is no one metric that can be used to measure opinions. You might not know what it means for the business but it has far reaching effects and can therefore not be avoided. ERP providers will therefore have to get a way of structuring this kind of data so that it becomes meaningful to the organization executives.
Currently, Hadoop is doing a great thing in creating order and drawing insight from this chaotic data. However, more software and analytical tools need to be devised so as to get more insight.
Artificial intelligence replacing human labour
Yes, we have been waiting for artificial intelligence for such a long time. And finally, here it comes with ERP. What you might not have known though is that AI is a disruptive technology that will make many employees redundant in their work places. Picture this for example: a sales representative tells the organization ERP to print out an invoice for a purchase made by a customer. The ERP automation not only prints out the invoice but also cross checks the stock and informs the procurement department to re-stock. In this case, artificial intelligence has made the store keeper’s role redundant since he was supposed to have checked the stock and informed the procurement.
In the same case, financial analysts will no longer be needed in an ERP environment since the software will automate the analysis. Email auto responders and social ERP will fire social media executives.