Your Digital Business Transformation: Is There a Future for ERP? (Part 4)

Part 4 will be my final article about how an “Enterprise Business Capabilities” (EBC) strategy will lead to true digital business transformation by overcoming outdated ERP thinking in the next decade of the 2020s. If you haven’t seen the other parts yet, check out why EBC will be critical for enterprise success, what EBC is, and how you can start crafting your large enterprise’s strategic roadmap to EBC.

If you’re caught up, let’s move on and talk about what your EBC migration will look like.

Your EBC Migration – What It Looks Like

Best practices suggest that, if you’re ready for your enterprise to succeed in the next decade, you should begin your migration strategy now.

Get the details on each of the steps below when you download the limited-time white paper.

Here are the steps you should follow:

In 2020…

• Consider what your customers, stakeholders, and employees will need from your enterprise in the future. This requires developing empathy for everyone who will interact with your enterprise and thinking deeply about what they want from you and how you can deliver their expectations in a way that delights them.
• Ask the 4 key questions: What are we doing? Why are we doing it now? Are we ready to do this? Can we delay? Remember, as I discussed in Part 3, you’re not simply implementing a new ERP solution in a Big Bang or phased implementation. You’re determining how you can realize true business value through digital business transformation.
• Set up your EBC governance. The term “governance” has been misunderstood for years, due to its narrow IT-compliance focus. Instead of treating EBC governance as mere oversight (which can only lead to unfortunate and outdated ERP-based questions like, “How long will this take?” and “How will we do this?”), consider your EBC governance as leadership that drives your evolving Enterprise Business Capabilities forward.
• Focus on data quality. Every decision you make in the 2020s must be agile, so your enterprise can keep up with the shifting business landscape and the pace of technological change. Only excellent data will help you with this goal, so ensure that your data quality can deliver the excellent data you need, every second of every day.

In 2021…

• Standardize your record-keeping. By this point, you’ve established effective data mining that relies only on excellent data quality. Now you need to ensure that you collect necessary data during every operation and interaction going forward, so you can keep your data-driven insight going strong into the future.
• Develop relationships with strategic vendors. An EBC mindset will naturally expand your enterprise’s tech solutions past the monolithic vendor strategies of old, pushing you constantly into using a wide range of continuously improving tech options. As your needs evolve, you’ll want to champion tech development that can keep up with you. To drive this change, build relationships with the most promising vendors, so you can join advisory boards and advocate for the business-building tech developments you deserve.
• Hire for emerging tech skills. As Baby Boomers increasingly retire from your workforce, you and every other enterprise may lose critical tech skillsets and the problem-solving mindset that drive tech-adoption success. Look to unexpected areas to rebuild or cultivate those skills in your own enterprise, such as ambitious but unlettered employees, as well as outsourced IT consultants.

In 2022…

• Tap into AI. Right now, “AI” isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), IoT-driven data collection, and chatbots are “nice to haves” that can streamline operations and reduce headcount at your enterprise – but in a few years, you’ll be able to leverage your excellent data, your in-house tech skills, and your EBC governance leadership to build real AI that gives your enterprise the competitive advantage.
• Prepare for EBC. At this point, it’s time to make the leap. Your digital business transformation is waiting… will your enterprise be ready?

Prepare for True Transformation – Starting Today

For more than 20 years, Centroid has helped enterprises across a wide variety of industries develop and execute on strategic plans for digital business transformation that supercharges business objectives.

The Centroid team was one of the first consultants to support cloud initiatives for clients and continues to push the envelope on cutting-edge transformational Enterprise Business Capabilities initiatives, assisting clients along every step of their technological and business-building journey.

Will Your Future Hold Outdated ERP, or Enterprise-Building EBC? You Decide.

The choice is yours. Choose wisely.

Learn more about how you can work with the Centroid team to develop, implement, support and sustain your EBC strategy over the next decade and beyond, when you contact the experts at Centroid.

Plan for your future