NGR's Blog

Just because it’s in fashion and a young trend, does not mean you should jump and get that cool scar. Unless of course…….

ERP on Cloud! That could have sounded as outrageous as torn jeans or wrinkled shirts or tangerine hair streaks. Such uber-stylish stuff is better left for experimentation of teens, is what you would have thought, and rightly so.

But is some bottom-up adoption of SaaS variants crawling into your office? Is it poking and hinting that indeed a big young lot of developers, sales/marketing or IT folks in your organization have since long started using cloud with full frenzy and oblivion to what you prefer?

So are you already too late? Should you follow something just because it is in fashion?

As ERP systems continue to develop and modernise, today's businesses have become un-recognisable from those of twenty or thirty years ago. Paperless offices are commonplace, fully integrated systems are a prerequisite and access to real-time data is a necessity.

While traditional ERP applications have served us well, their built-in limitations, aging capabilities and difficulties linking to 3rd party applications have often seen them unable to evolve with changing business requirements.

There is something called 'Life after Office' thought Sandhya. She resolved to change her lifestyle. She realised that she gets so engrossed in her work, that lately she had begun collecting payments in her dreams. To change the current scenario, Sandhya accepted the idea of trying out ERP to ease her workload.

With a stern resolve she opened the ERP's user manual. The manual said ERP is like Exercise. It is painful in the short run; but, will do wonders in the long run. Exercise! the word sent her in a tizzy. She remembered paying her gym fees and not being able to continue. The ERP manual had touched the wrong chord. She closed the manual.

This is the story of a sales employee who refused to systematise her data on an ERP system. Her name was Sandhya. She was the star sales performer in her organisation. She always delivered her numbers, was extremely hardworking, and loved by everyone in office. Life was beautiful till two major casualties took place. One, she got a new boss. Two, that boss decided to install an ERP.

Here is what Sam Duarte told us after evaluating NGRERP thoroughly for a month: "I have tested the NGRERP platform. We had keyed in a lot of live data. I should say it is a good software. However I feel that there needs to be a lot of discipline in the organization to be able to implement this solution well which I feel we are not ready as yet.

We regret to inform you that we will be unable to go ahead in implementing this."

My father was very curious to know what my new company does. I remained silent for some time. I was trying to figure out a way to explain to him in words he could understand. He is 72 years old. He only understands the meaning of the term computer. He was a serial entrepreneur in his time. As far as software is concerned, he has no idea what programmers do? What is coding? What is HTML? What exactly does a software engineer do on a computer?

The cloud is new for everybody. And you know what? It’s okay to be scared.

Fear makes you aware of the things you need to take control of. Ultimately, you want to move into the cloud, but in your own time, and on your own terms.

We get that. We know how stressful transition can be, so we want to help you think through your decision-making process with some key questions.

Here is what you need to ask your cloud ERP provider.

• Do I have to pay you forever?
• How safe and accessible is my data?
• Will you continually update your software? But on my terms?
• If I commit to you, but you don’t live up to your SLA, can I easily take my data and move on to the next cloud ERP provider?