March 20178 When it comes to emerging technologies, one phrase that has drawn more controversy than others is cloud computing. Two words, which have driven countless debates, caused numerous arguments in IT departments, and more often than we would care to admit, have left many in the industry deeply confused.Similar technology transformation is happening in ERP space as well. The cloud is making on-premises ERP implementations an endangered species. This is a big change from just a few years ago, when cloud ERP was met with skepticism, particularly among large companies with big investments in on-premises systems. Attitudes have changed as IT and business management have come to understand the cloud's capabilities and value proposition.Cloud-based ERP platforms rely on hosted internet services, rather than an on-premises networked server infra-structure to deploy core enterprise sys-tems such as financial applications, human resources (HR) tools, and supply chain management (SCM) software. The original advantages of cloud ERP were faster deployments, imme-diate enterprise-wide availability of the lat-est versions of appli-cations, less need for on-site support, and simpler pricing. Lat-er systems featured greater ease of use, mobile-enablement of applications, and easier integration with outside data sources. Today, most up-to-date cloud-based ERP systems have Internet of things (IoT) and machine learning capabilities.With cloud-based ERP offering so many pluses, why even consider an on-premises option? Even market lead-ers SAP and Oracle admit that few companies are deploy-ing new on-premises ERP systems. Research firm Gart-ner predicts that the cloud will become the default option for software deployment by 2020. The writing is on the wall: Cloud will rule and on-premises ERP is heading for legacy status.Change in Attitude towards CloudTwo barriers to cloud ERP adoption had been security concerns and resistance to change among IT leaders. The latter is understandable, considering the investment made in the software, training, and support infrastructure of on-site systems, not to mention the risk associated with replacing any core business system. The security concerns were tied to the belief that remotely hosted systems were inherently at greater risk than on-site deployments -- especially if they were housed in multi-tenant public cloud setups where a single instance of application code serves many customers.Those areas of cloud's perceived weakness are now seen as strengths. For example, with on-site IT infrastructures, security degrades over time as upgrades are skipped and new soft-ware with additional risks is integrated. With cloud-based ERP, the latest se-ERP Heads toward Cloud By Santosh Kotnis, EVP & CEO, Futurism TechnologiesIN MY VIEWSantosh KotnisBased in Pune, India, Futurism Technologies is an Information Technologies and Services company. Founded in 2001, the company provides end-to-end cost-effective and quality ITeS solutions and also specializes in business consulting, application development and cloud computing etc.
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