How are organisations like yours approaching ERP in the age of Cloud? Check the latest ERP strategy statistics…
We’ve written before about the misinformation and ambiguity surrounding ERP and the Cloud. Vendors, consultants, and the media all have their views on the various different
To provide some insights, we’ve surveyed over 1,000 organisations worldwide about their Oracle and SAP ERP strategy for the next five to ten years. We collected a lot of ERP strategy statistics, but have distilled it into some key takeaways below for you.
IT budgets are not increasing significantly
Only 27% of respondents indicated that their IT budgets were going to increase significantly in the next five to ten years. The remaining 73% were concerned that their IT budgets would either remain static or decrease over this time.
With the ever-increasing needs of organisations, the desire to innovate, and the constant cycle of vendor software upgrades (and now Cloud migrations) – how can IT departments budget for it all?
This is one of the major stressors of senior IT professionals. Our data shows that this isn’t going to go away anytime soon for the majority of organisations that we spoke to. But what was the biggest worry on the minds of CIOs? You guessed it – the Cloud.
The Cloud is a daunting project for many organisations
In our ERP strategy statistics, 18% of organisations were already in the Cloud or actively in the process of moving to it. But what about organisations looking to make the jump to the Cloud? How are IT departments planning to tackle this project given their budgets and other priorities?
We found that the remaining 82% of organisations in our survey were split into three distinct groups:
- 23% of respondents said they were moving to the Cloud, but had no agreed timeline on when. These organisations are waiting to see how Cloud ERP develops. But given SAP’s 2025 deadline and Oracle’s de-support dates, how long can they really wait?
- 47% of respondents said that they planned to START their move to the Cloud within the next 24 months. These organisations have a long road ahead of them (it took Oracle six years to move to its own Cloud). They will still need to support, patch, and maybe upgrade their systems in the time it takes to move to the Cloud. It’s easy to underestimate the complexity of these projects or overestimate the compatibility of Cloud solutions with your current setup. We’ve seen several high-profile companies backtrack on Cloud migrations in recent years for exactly this reason. But where do you go next?
- 30% of respondents said they weren’t going to move to the Cloud. You read that right. These organisations have made the decision to ignore SAP’s deadline and Oracle’s sales teams and stick with their current systems. How? They have an in-house support team or they are working with a third-party support provider like us.
Cloud is the future for many organisations, but definitely not for all
We found that 18% of the organisations we spoke to were already on a Cloud system (or in the process of moving). These aren’t the huge adoption numbers the vendors talk about. It adds more evidence to the rumours that the vendors are exaggerating their numbers.
As we’ve already stated, 30% of our survey respondents said that they had no plans to move to the Cloud. Even more are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach. Some are considering a hybrid solution where they keep key systems on-premise and put scalable systems on a Cloud platform.
The current narrative from Oracle and SAP is that 100% Cloud is the only way. But we have found that many organisations worldwide are not listening.
Oracle and SAP aren’t helping themselves with their approach
So why are organisations so reticent to listen to Oracle and SAP? We think that it’s probably because of their relationship with these vendors.
41% of our respondents described their relationship with Oracle or SAP as either non-existent or poor. 7% stated that they are actively looking to leave the vendor entirely.
The feedback we’ve received from organisations is that both vendors are damaging their relationships with pushy sales tactics. Other organisations are finding that the realities of Cloud aren’t what was promised. It
But what alternatives are there? Especially if Oracle and SAP de-support their old products?
Third-party support (like Support Revolution) is a lifeline for many organisations
Support Revolution helps companies save money without compromise so they can reinvest in other projects. Not only that, but it can enable organisations to essentially ‘freeze’ their setups while they decide what to do next. They can relax, safe in the knowledge that they are fully supported, even when vendors refuse to support them.
We found that 47% of respondents were either using or considering third-party support for their Oracle and SAP systems, with the two main reasons for using it being:
- To save money: Respondents were using a third-party support provider like Support Revolution to provide short-term support while they moved to the Cloud. This meant that they saved money (often between 50% to 90%) on their support, and didn’t have to take on upgrade projects while they were migrating to the Cloud.
- To remain on-premise for longer: Working with a third-party support provider like Support Revolution is helping organisations to stay on-premise for longer. We support all versions and customisations indefinitely. This puts control back in your hands (not the vendors) so you can decide if and when you move your systems.
With both Oracle and SAP pushing to get you onto their Cloud systems (whether it’s right for you now or not), we think you should explore the benefits of third-party support. You can see how much you could save with our free online calculator.
