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Why Cloud ERP during uncertain times

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) bring numerous challenges and complexity across all departments. But IT teams are often charged with providing the underlying infrastructure that will allow the organizations to operate successfully under a new configuration.

This is a big ask and typically occurs with little warning, and regardless of how much ongoing work exists in the day job.

There are plenty of factors that can further complicate this scenario, including when the company is acquired or merged is in a different country with unique reporting and regulatory requirements.

While part of an important growth strategy for the organization, these moves can put tremendous pressure on already taxed IT staff.

Additionally, an outdated IT infrastructure may not easily accommodate the planned integration.

If it is not designed to handle this scenario, that’s when you risk creating organizational silos of data and an extended period to reach your goals.

Avoiding complexity in mergers and acquisitions for IT Departments:

If IT needs to jump through various hoops to provide comprehensive reporting and visibility into the new partnership, the opportunities for errors increase, valuable ROI is lost, and the goals of the M&A activity may be missed.

By moving from on-premises enterprise infrastructure to the cloud, organizations can avoid a potentially devastating business impact while simultaneously optimizing your IT workforce efforts.

Since cloud solutions are designed to be scalable, flexible, secure, and manage variable workloads, they are ideally suited for M&A activities.

Liberty Steel UK was part of an acquisition by Liberty House Group that deployed CloudSuite Industrial Enterprise in both the UK and China, supporting over 1700 employees in those locations.

One of the key benefits identified by Liberty was the offsite deployment of the cloud solution, which freed their IT staff to focus on the strategic initiatives of their growing company.

If you find the themes covered in this blog post “Avoiding complexity in mergers and acquisitions”  relevant to your business, we invite you to download this eBook on how to avoid business-damaging scenarios caused by outdated IT systems.

Why Cloud ERP during uncertain times

We continue our blog series on the importance of business continuity by recognizing how the loss of technical expertise can have a potentially damaging impact on organizations with legacy IT applications.

Over time, each organization builds an enterprise ecosystem that uniquely addresses its needs.

This is the natural progression of enterprise business solutions as technology and tools advance.

Avoid disruption from loss of technical expertise: the challenge emerges when only a handful of people understand how to manage and maintain that system successfully and perhaps only one individual truly understands the complete picture.

As these enterprise solutions and corresponding data are the very core of the business, any scenario that puts it at risk is dangerous.

For many organizations, the realization that your go-to people, those who truly understand all the nuances in your enterprise ecosystem, are no longer there comes too late.

Whether this loss comes through resignation, retirement, health issues, or merger and acquisition, you will need to find replacements.

How can your organization ensure the continuity of day-to-day operations with the potential loss of technical expertise?

One of the ways to mitigate this risk is to accelerate cloud migration.

Avoid disruption from loss of technical expertise with a shift to the cloud, your organization is supported by solutions that are continuously updated, and by investment in IT personnel that would be difficult for some of the largest organizations to match.

A small army is dedicated to monitoring your organization’s applications and data to ensure they are optimized and protected.

A recent CIO tech priorities survey by IDG showed that “despite increased budgets and interest in new technologies that can positively impact business in the future, organizations still face familiar challenges to adoption.

The top challenges that IT leaders encounter are lack of sufficient budget (48%), lack of staff (46%), and lack of skill sets (42%).”

By shifting the responsibility of managing and maintaining your critical IT solutions over to a cloud provider with modern applications, your organization can create an opportunity to reset expectations and priorities for your IT staff.

Babbitt Chainwheels is a manufacturer and distributor who relied on a legacy ERP for years.

While the organization faced a number of business challenges, one urgent situation was the impending retirement of its IT staff.

To protect and grow their business, they invested in a cloud solution that would relieve much of that burden.

If you find the themes covered in this blog post relevant to your business, we invite you to download this eBook on how to avoid six business-damaging scenarios caused by outdated IT systems.

Why Cloud ERP during uncertain times

Even when you do everything right, the unexpected can happen.

Natural disasters strike, equipment fails, and human errors occurs.

While steps were taken to mitigate risk, when disaster strikes, it’s still up to you and your team to race to recover, to ensure actions to get back online are taken correctly, and time is never on your side.

If your organization previously reviewed and dismissed the value of the cloud, it’s time to reevaluate.

Decisions that seemed to make sense last year or even last quarter, likely look very different through today’s lens.

In this Post we focus on critical system failure and how unexpected outages can bring a company’s mission-critical operations to its knees.

Losses can be initially staggering and ultimately far-reaching, impacting not only revenue and productivity but also long-term brand value.

How to avoid critical system failure? It’s been estimated that the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute, with $140,000 per hour on the low end and as much as $540,000 per hour at the higher end.

Absorbing the activities to resolve the issue itself and then putting in place actions across the organization to recover from the critical failure and its consequences can derail an organization for an extended period of time.

But what if you could offload that preparation, training, and responsibility to an organization you trust to manage it all for you?

With a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, experts who are contractually committed to ensuring your business continuity are shouldering that burden.

Not only can you remove that task and worry from your list, but when a failure of some kind inevitably occurs, you will likely never even experience a disruption.

Such is the type of redundancies and fail-safes that SaaS organizations put in place.

But also, with that shift of responsibility, your team can instead focus additional time on other strategic initiatives with higher business value.

By moving from on-premise enterprise infrastructure to the cloud, you can avoid a potentially devastating business impact while simultaneously optimizing your workforce.

An Infor customer in the distribution industry found themselves facing a catastrophic scenario.

They relied on a legacy on-premises solution for over 30 years. How to avoid critical system failure ? while it had been dependable for decades, the day the system failed, there were no longer any technicians familiar with the solution and no feasible way to recover.

The owner decided the only logical step forward in that critical moment was a move to the cloud, which allowed them to recover.

In hindsight, it would have been ideal to begin that transition to the cloud years earlier, but they are now benefiting from more than peace of mind.

In this uniquely challenging environment, operational continuity has never been more important to your business.

If you find the themes covered in our blog post relevant to your business, we invite you to download this eBook on how to avoid business-damaging scenarios caused by outdated IT systems.

Legacy Upgrade: the same functionality for the cost of your maintenance

Give your business the latest in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) capabilities and upgrade SmartStream with Infor CloudSuite.

Notably your cloud solution, your users will be empowered to make better decisions with in-context analytics.

Your IT and business support teams will gain flexibility to configure solutions to your business needs without the need for expensive customization.

Specifically Infor’s unique Legacy Upgrade program for existing customers allows you to get equal functionality on a Cloud platform at the same cost.

The additional functionality is available at a nominal cost.

Especially, your bottom line will benefit from lower cost of operations and predictable subscription expense.

            Book a demo with one of our consultants in CloudSuite Financials

Without a doubt, the Key features of the upgrade SmartStream program are:

Hence, Watch this sort video and take action now

                Book a demo with one of our consultants.

The rules have changed

Now this is a coupling modern financial functionality with tools to track supplies and streamline order processes.

• Above all Infor CloudSuite Financials combines over 30 years of best practices and expertise with innovative new technologies.
• Secondly this solution creates an end-to-end and fully integrated solution.
• Also is built for users and designed to support complex and dynamic organizations.
• Not to mention CloudSuite Financials is a  role-based, data driven, consumer-inspired, mobile enabled, and delivered in the cloud.
• Definitely this solution gives you the functionality and flexibility to become the finance department you always knew you could be.

Finally, Download this pdf and read it for free and Book a demo with one of our consultants.

This role-based, data-driven, and mobile-enabled integrated suite helps you to redefine financial management technology.

Top 5 reasons to upgrade SmartStream to CloudSuite Financials

The value of modernizing and face the future with no fear

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has disrupted businesses around the world, rapidly changing market conditions and rendering most corporate 2020 plans futile and companies need to plan in times of uncertainty.

Definitely, the coronavirus is a stark reminder of the volatility of our global business environment.

In other words, for many C-suite executives, it’s hard enough to accurately budget, plan, and forecast.

Last but not least, we’ll look at what CFOs around the globe can do to quickly respond to changing conditions and ensure business continuity, while improving planning processes and minimizing organizational risk .

Feeling unsure, overwhelmed, or frustrated? Book a demo with one of our consultants on financial planning in uncertain times.

1. Create a Business Continuity Plan

First and foremost, executive leadership and finance teams should focus on developing a plan for business continuity.

In particular, a business continuity plan is an outline of the policies and procedures that will keep your company running during major disruptions.

This can include but is not limited to a reassessment of capital investments, evaluating existing cash flow, and devising a plan to acquire debt.

Moreover, for most organizations, the Office of Finance will play a critical role in the creation of the business continuity plan.

Indeed, to assemble an accurate continuity plan, finance professionals should consider the following to plan in times of uncertainty:

• • “What-if” scenarios,
  • Cross-company financial planning,
  • Forecasting,
  • And Budgeting

Take a proactive approach to scenario planning with one of our consultants

2. Prepare for a Successful Tomorrow with Scenario Planning

As a result of COVID-19’s impact on the markets, finance teams must consider countless “what-if” scenarios to prepare fo a successful tomorrow with scenario planning, such as:

• • How long will the outbreak last and how will it affect the markets?
  • What unpredicted costs will we incur (i.e. production, real estate, equipment, headcount)?
  • What liabilities might we incur?
  • How will this impact our workforce?
  • How will this impact our revenue and profitability?

Luckily, there are processes and software that can minimize the time, effort, and errors associated with spreadsheet-based planning processes that would traditionally be used to model these “what-if” scenarios.

Clearly, Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software can easily model “what-if” scenarios to provide insight into your businesses’ potential future state, helping you reorganize and plan for a successful tomorrow. 

Take a proactive approach to scenario planning with one of our consultants

3. Leverage the Collaborative Nature of Cross-Company Financial Planning

Never has there been a more opportune time for businesses to leverage agile cross-company financial planning to rapidly plan for the future with a detailed and collaborative approach.

In addition, at the foundation of agile cross-company planning are three pillars:

1. 1. People – Foster an environment of collaboration by identifying, including, and empowering key roles within your company.
   2. Process – It’s a best practice to map the planning cycle and have regular touch points to follow-up on. It
   3. Technology – Your technology should integrate with all your business systems and enable you to have a single view of your data.

Take a proactive approach to scenario planning with one of our consultants

In fact, the primary benefit of cross-company financial planning is that it centralizes your data from disparate systems and helps companies to plan in uncertainty times.

As such, it is best suited to businesses that have different employees, departments, and systems that handle financial data.

Without a doubt, with a financial planning solution like Prophix, your data is immediately accessible to all users, allowing them to evaluate the financial performance of your organization.

4. Reduce Risk with Rolling Forecasts

With the right tools and processes in place, many companies can create rolling short-, medium-, and long-term forecasts for their company.

Above all, reducing risk with rolling forecasts allow you to “view opportunities and challenges beyond the fiscal year and to fight the myopia that comes with an overemphasis on current-year targets” (CFODive).

 Therefore, Corporate Performance Management software can assist finance departments in compiling and analyzing the data necessary for a long-term forecast, as well as “what-if” scenarios and cross-company budget and planning, which are critical parts of a business continuity plan.

Take a proactive approach to scenario planning with one of our consultants

5. Unlock Your Budget

It’s only April but it’s likely your 2020 budgets and forecasts are no longer relevant. Now is the time to “unlock your budget” and reconsider what line items are critical to your businesses’ success (CFO) and how to plan in times of uncertainty.

In other words, CFO recommends that CFOs “address the risks and opportunities posed by a range of virus scenarios, building high-level models of business cases to quantify the impact to P&L, cash flow, and Balance Sheet”.

Further suggestions include assessing the implications on productivity, investigating potential hidden costs, and addressing driver-based scenarios to plan in uncertainty times.

Finally, this can be done in conjunction with your rolling forecasts to give you a better understanding of all possible scenarios, which can further inform your business continuity plan.

Take a proactive approach to scenario planning with one of our consultants

Above all, your business is evolving. Your systems should evolve too.

Furthermore, achieve your goals more successfully with Prophix’s innovative Corporate Performance Management (CPM) software.

Improve profitability and minimize risk when you automate repetitive tasks and focus on what matters. Budget, plan, consolidate and report automatically.