Reasons not to drive business transformation through your ERP system
Complex ERP systems simply don’t have the flexibility to map your future business needs in an agile way.
Major vendors of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems would have you drive your strategic transformation strategies through their platforms. This does not make sense for many reasons.
The main reason is that business transformation can only take place if your strategic business model and decisions are mapped to your core business processes. Plus, all your employees must be integrated and linked into your new way of working. If you let your ERP system dictate your market positioning, differentiation from competitors and the resulting design of your core processes, you will not achieve your ultimate goal.
A structured rethink and adaptation of your business model requires an independent digital platform for business transformation & operational excellence. Don’t let your ERP vendor pressure you into driving your strategy through its platform.
With API ecosystems expanding greatly and composite applications as a dominating IT trend for the next few years, the heterogeneity of your software landscape will evolve rapidly and continuously. By design, complex ERP systems simply don’t have the flexibility to map your future business needs in an agile way.
Independence is not only required in the flexible implementation of business requirements: Also, the continuous analysis and optimization of processes with process mining should not stop at system boundaries but focus on the end-to-end processes. The same applies to regulatory compliance -the processes and not the boundaries of your IT systems are the relevant structures for conducting audits.
Be sure to use an independent platform to connect your strategy and core processes to your IT capabilities.
In my article on Process Excellence Network (OPEX), I delve into the five reasons why letting your ERP call the shots makes no sense.