The following is from an interesting post by Douglas Johnson on ERP Cloud News regarding cloud adoption based on research by Forrester Research.
In the article Doug states that the use of cloud ERP technology is growing. Over 50% of companies plan to increase their cloud spending over the next 12 months as reported by Forrester Research1
The following comments represent a random sampling from Cloud ERP Customers, not merely quotes from the list of happy customers that you see on vendor websites.
We thought that connecting to a US based cloud service would be terribly slow, but it worked quite well. The software eliminates the amount of data that is transferred, making the response time faster than we have experienced with websites that contain too many graphics and flash movies. – Distributor in Africa
The ERP software works well, but the Cloud service has slowed operations on a few occassions. I like the fact I’m not worried about IT resources, but I’m considering running the software on an internal cloud so I can eliminate occassional performance issues. – Manufacturer in Southern US
Cloud ERP gives us the capability to summarize data from multiple locations to get summary reports at headquarters and still maintain the detail to see how individual franchisees are doing. –Franchiser in Southeast Asia
The cloud eliminated client software so we can easily involve business partners and remote employees without the hassle of installing and maintaining software remotely. This allows us to centrally manage sales across multiple suppliers and distributors while keeping costs low. – Online retailer in Eastern US
We have been able to customize [vendor name removed] to meet most of our needs, faster and at a lower price than we would have with any other system. – Software Company in Eastern Europe
We needed to customize our [same vendor as above] software, but the cost quoted by [vendor] was more than 3 times the annual cost. This locked us into a solution that was not able to suit our needs. – Software Company in Northern USA
The cloud allows me to try the software solution before I buy. Three years ago, I purchased a legacy system from [vendor name removed] and made the mistake of buying into a feature set that was promised in a future release that has yet to occur. The cloud lets me see existing functionality and learn quickly what I am capable of importing and customizing. – Ecommerce company in US Central
We’re very happy with the software and quality of service delivered by [vendor name]. By removing the complexity of software we can focus on running our business. However, recently [vendor] announced a price increase that more than doubles our current price. The cost of switching to another solution is high, so we had little choice but to absorb the price increase. The price increase eliminated the savings we got by switching to the Cloud. – Ecommerce company in US Central
1 The ROI Of Cloud Apps, Forrester, June 2011.
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Be sure to see the original post by Douglas Johnson at ERP Cloud News for the complete article.
