This blog posts addresses how proliferation of cloud apps, platforms, databases and the other plethora of services available as cloud models can interact with an in-house system. Offered are some points to consider before taking the cloud plunge. Is it as easy as the vendors make it sound to consolidate multiple systems and does it cause multiple siloes of information which is what BRM (business resource management) systems have solved or does it continue increase the amount of departmental siloes if your sytems are not integrated together ?
As organizations adopt more cloud and SaaS solutions their infrastructure continues to grow. Whether it is IaaS, PaaS, cloud, SaaS ro collaboration do the applications provide a holistic consolidated view and convenience of a standard ERP? Is it usable and accessable information ? Organizations continue to adopt many cloud applications, virtualizations, application development, cloud storage, content management, social networks, CRM, mobility platforms and apps etc. how are all these systems interacting or are they ?
The stability, convenience, depth of detail, consolidated and real-time information that a single system ERP can offer is that information is still available even if multiple cloud applications, platforms, databases, content management, storage, social media, search, CRM to name a few of the outsourced services and applications exist. How are they managed, administered, supported, what skills are needed to support disparate multiple platforms and applications and by whom, how many people are needed to do so and at what cost to the organization ?
Although cloud vendors have opened their API’s, platforms for other applications to work in tandem will that be enough ? The many applications that will need to be run to replace the functionality of an ERP system; integration will have to be seriously considered and examined in detail. Companies that offer platforms to build upon – can their business performance management perform real-time data aggregation,dashboard reporting, ETL functions and provide a consolidated accurate view of the data from all the now siloed information that multiple systems and platforms mixed with in-house applications and the spread of the diversified views of data. ? Another integration approach is the addition of a middleware such as INFOR ION or a business process managament software that is capable of data aggregation and workflow automation.
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I would be interested in finding out vendors with real-world experience in deploying cloud applications, platforms including virtualization, cloud services, administration of diversified applications how effective was the data consolidation, integration, validity and timeliness from the distributed systems and how the data was consumed , by whom and by how many employees. If there are business performance management vendors (BPM, EPM, BI vendors) that offer dashboards with consolidated views I would be interested in speaking with them.
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