Oracle ERP Cloud Implementation: Implementation Planning and Best Practices

Legacy on-premises Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are no longer enough to stay agile in today’s ever-evolving and dynamic markets. These systems are monolithic, inflexible, and costly to customize, prompting many organizations to reallocate their resources from ongoing investments in on-premises ERP systems to cloud-enabled ERP systems that are agile, flexible, and more cost-effective. ERP cloud implementation gives organizations the freedom to quickly adapt to market changes while keeping them future-ready, open to innovation, agile, and efficient.

Oracle ERP Cloud Solutions

When it comes to cloud-enabled ERP solutions, Oracle cloud ERP is one of the best-known market leaders for enterprise-grade cloud ERP solutions that offer a complete range of advanced capabilities necessary for any organization. This end-to-end SaaS suite can help manage core operations like financial management, supply chain management, human capital management, and customer experience. Oracle Cloud ERP supports hybrid deployment and is available across public and private implementation models. It also offers benefits like:

• Lower application costs
• On-demand scalability
• State-of-the-art security
• Access to faster upgrades and the latest features
• Intuitive and portable applications
• Easy third-party integrations

Need of Oracle ERP Cloud

One of the biggest reasons for switching from on-premises ERP to Oracle ERP cloud implementation is the freedom and flexibility it affords your organization to modify, adapt, and scale your ERP solutions. to meet public needs. Other major benefits of Oracle ERP cloud implementation are:

• Oracle ERP cloud usually requires lower initial capital and upfront investment, making it an ideal budget solution. You also get great value for money and return on investment with access to advanced functionalities and no maintenance costs.
• With low capital investment, you can reduce your IT debt, helping you build a leaner organization.
• Cloud ERP systems can help streamline deployment strategies and avoid potential pitfalls and implementation difficulties of on-premises ERP implementation.
• It can help you improve visibility and increase cross-functional collaboration opportunities across the organization. This can also help you improve and optimize your processes across the board.
• Oracle ERP is one of the safer platforms to securely store, access, and share your corporate data.
• With Oracle ERP cloud implementation, you can access the latest features and security protocols with regular, faster, and easier updates. It also makes data migration and managing complex data scenarios much easier with advanced cloud capabilities.
• You can scale, expand, or even scale down your operations quickly and conveniently to meet your organizational needs, enhancing growth opportunities.
• Cloud ERP implementation offers more accessibility, easily supporting remote and hybrid workplaces.
• You can significantly reduce your organization’s carbon footprint with cloud-based ERP.
• Oracle ERP Cloud is flexible and adaptable to meet the needs of public sector organizations at any level.

How to Plan Oracle ERP Cloud Implementation

Data indicates that approximately 60% of ERP implementation projects fail. Although this is an alarming statistic, the main reason ERP projects fail is the lack of planning, as you need to start planning your Oracle ERP cloud implementation as soon as you start contract negotiations. The key implementation phases you need to plan for are:

• Prepare
• Examine
• Plan
• Design
• Configure and test
• Deploy
• Run

Planning for each unique phase is crucial for the success of Oracle ERP cloud implementation. Here are some tips that can help you plan your cloud ERP implementation successfully:

• Although testing may not be your priority in the planning phase, ERP go-live system testing before implementation is critical. It can help you assess whether the ERP cloud service can handle all requirements of the public sector, and you can make any necessary changes if required.
• Frequent and clear communication at every stage, with everyone involved, is imperative. Effective communication is not only the key to successful ERP cloud implementation, but it also plays a crucial role in preparing and transitioning your team through the change management process.
• Another key planning step is to prepare your data, inventory your current data and establish the necessary data definitions and structures. This can help you identify and correct any errors in the present data while streamlining a smooth data migration from your current systems to the cloud.
• Even with the best efforts and planning, cloud ERP implementation can go south. A contingency plan ensures operations continuity in case that happens.
• Coordinate with your Oracle ERP cloud solutions provider at every stage, keeping them by your side to help answer any of your questions or resolve any technical difficulties.

Oracle Cloud Implementation Best Practices

Oracle ERP cloud offers a wide range of services and features to manage your public sector workload. Oracle also recommends a set of best practices that can help you design and implement an ERP solution. The recommended best practices for oracle cloud implementation are:

• Focus on securing your systems, data, and information assets in the cloud with strategies like user authentication, access control, or network security.
• Optimize the available cloud resources – via storage strategies, cost tracking and management, or network monitoring – to achieve the best possible performance while minimizing costs.
• Focus on workload monitoring and deployment strategies to ensure you use the cloud applications and resources as best as possible.
• Testing is of the utmost importance. Testing under normal and extreme conditions with predicted peaks accounted for can help you understand whether the ERP can handle the traffic.
• Properly documented the implementation plan, along with clearly defined roles and responsibilities for every individual involved in the implementation process.
• Engage senior management, network team, and cloud vendors in your cloud ERP implementation team.
• Focus on tackling change management, being upfront about the possible changes, and addressing any concerns or questions your employees may have about the drastic changes Oracle ERP cloud implementation may bring.
• Try to avoid third-party integrations to maintain data integrity and security.

Value Addition and TOC

One of the biggest value additions Oracle cloud implementations can offer is building scalable systems that can help you streamline and standardize your operations to support organizational growth. It also simplifies your path toward modernizing your legacy systems and embracing scale analytics without operational disruptions. This can help your organization to become data-driven, simplifying your strategic and tactical decision-making, and allow you to transition to a data-native organization to truly leverage your data and information assets to transform your processes and secure your position in the data economy.

An example of Oracle ERP cloud implementation adding value to the organization is the National Railroad Operator (Agency), where the re-architecture approach has helped the organization achieve a zero-disruption modernization of their mainframe system. This move has allowed the agency to reduce its TCO by 30%, achieve a 20% faster time to market, improve system performance, and reduce operational risk without any major changes to the logic. As a result, the costs saved via cloud ERP migration have funded the agency’s digital transformation while minimizing training requirements and fostering faster user adoption. Other organizations, like the County Tax Department and financial organizations, have also achieved similar results with Oracle cloud implementation, allowing them to reduce operational costs and TCO and improve their operational efficiency.

Conclusion

The ERP implementation landscape has experienced a drastic shift over the last few years, with global organizations preferring cloud ERP solutions over on-premises ERP systems. With advantages like lower costs, flexibility, accessibility, better results, better data security, and improved user experience, Oracle ERP cloud implementation is arguably the better solution for organizations that want to sustain and grow in the data economy. Considering Oracle ERP cloud implementation planning and best practices can help you add value to your organization, reduce operational costs and TCO, and improve operational efficiency to launch your organization in the data economy.