Focusing on ERP systems in business digitalization can ruin a company

ERP systems are not designed for modern digital solutions

Business digitalization and the implementation of new intelligent solutions have been hot topics for companies across all industries for the past several years. Many companies have been investing heavily in various digitalization projects but have still failed to achieve tangible results at the desired level. We believe that one of the root causes for the numerous failures is the wrong type of tools in use – many companies are trying to build modern digital solutions on top of their legacy ERP systems.

It is understandable, that companies have a strong bond to these legacy systems – they are the heart of day-to-day operations and for many have been the foundation of all IT activities for decades now. Still, companies should realize that these systems simply aren’t built to support modern digital solutions.

Digital transformation vs. The IT approach

Many companies fail to see the fundamental difference between modern digital solutions and traditional IT projects such as ERP development. Modern digital solutions are customer-facing, whereas ERPs focus on internal processes. They are two entities with completely different goals, requirements, and users, but still, many companies use a single roadmap for their development. This often leads to a situation, where the traditional, slow-paced IT projects are blocking new customer-facing and value-adding solutions from being developed. We have all heard the phrase “We have an ERP project coming up…”, which usually means that nothing new will be started in the next 12 months.

As it is stated in an article by McKinsey:

“As fundamental as they are, three-fourths of ERP transformation projects fail to stay on schedule or within budget, and two-thirds have a negative return on investment."

We are not saying that companies should stop developing their internal processes and ERP systems, but it shouldn’t stand in the way of developing customer-facing solutions.

Two different things, two different goals, two different roadmaps – that’s the key to success in both categories.

Cloud-based ERPs – better, but not good enough

Some companies might think they have solved the problem of outdated tools by switching from a legacy ERP system to a modern cloud-based version. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but in the end fails to solve the fundamental conflict between traditional ERPs and modern digital solutions. A cloud-based ERP is still an ERP system – designed for internal processes.

The big players’ cloud platforms offer building blocks but no ready-to-run solutions

If ERPs (legacy or cloud-based) are no good for building modern digital solutions, then what is the correct set of tools then?

For many companies, the answer seems to be the cloud platforms of the big players of the industry – Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud. At the first glance, these tools might seem like a great option, but they come with some pretty big challenges.

While these cloud platforms are capable of handling modern, customer-facing digital solutions, they don’t really offer anything that’s ready-to-run. They are more like a variety of building blocks, which can be turned into something useful if assembled correctly. The problem is that building production-ready solutions from these tiny blocks is a very time-consuming process that requires a vast amount of expertise with that specific platform. Training your team to effectively use these tools can take months and months.

The other option is to hire an external partner to do the development work for you, which usually costs fortunes. Even if you have sufficient resources to take on such a project, you can’t really know how the finalized solution will turn out before you have burned the time and money. If it requires more work, you are kind of forced to invest more, since you are already in too deep to back off. This is a vicious cycle that can quickly triple your original budget and mess up your timeline.

Just because you can do something with a certain tool, doesn’t mean it’s the right choice.

The perfect tool for building modern digital solutions

As you might have guessed, we have a solution to all of the previously presented challenges.

Bluugo’s Tracking Cloud® is the world’s first hyperadaptive cloud platform for B2B digitalization.

It provides everything needed for digitalizing core business processes and filling the black holes in your value chain in a truly data-driven and future proof way – with unprecedented ease, speed, and efficiency.

Tracking Cloud® connects all your stakeholder groups under a single platform – employees, customers, their customers, suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers, transportation providers, retailers, etc. This allows you to build a comprehensive digital ecosystem around your business with real-time visibility and seamless data flow between all stakeholders and existing IT systems. Unlike most ERPs, Tracking Cloud’s pricing is not based on individual user licenses – you can freely connect every stakeholder to the platform without additional license fees.

Hyperadaptable 100% to your needs

One of the pivotal issues with traditional ERPs is that their features are usually designed to do one thing, and one thing only. Modifying any baseline features or fields usually requires costly custom development and takes a lot of time. With Tracking Cloud®, it is quite the opposite – it is designed to adapt to all your existing processes, workflows, transactions, and terminology. We call this hyperadaptability.

On a technical level, it is the ability to easily modify anything in our platform from high-level processes to single workflows, data fields and integrations – with unprecedented speed and zero coding.

In practice, hyperadaptability is much more than that. It allows you to unleash the full digital potential of your business and digitalize core processes with less complexity, less risks, predictable costs, 100% future-proofness, and the fastest time-to-value in the market.

Want to add a new field, modify a workflow or create a new dashboard view? Go ahead and do it! There’s no need for spending fortunes and sitting in tedious workshops with your IT partner (which is often the case when trying to modify anything in your legacy systems).

Tracking Cloud’s low-code approach enables agile modifying and development of the solutions without grassroot-level product development and coding custom features from scratch.

Ready-to-run solutions

Tracking Cloud® is more than just a platform or a pile of building blocks. Unlike Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud, it offers ready-to-run solution packages for a variety of industries and use cases that can be implemented with extremely short time-to-value. The implementation and onboarding of Tracking Cloud® usually takes 8-12 weeks from the start to go live. The payback of your investment starts almost immediately.

Tracking Cloud’s end-to-end service package covers all the required technology, software, hardware, APIs, integrations, and comprehensive onboarding & support services – so you can focus on the essential.

We know what works and what doesn’t through decades of hands-on experience

Bluugo’s experts have a long background of working with Legacy ERP systems and other tools used in traditional IT projects – they were the very reason our company was founded in the first place. After working with these stiff tools for years, our founders realized there had to be a better way of building modern digital solutions. Luckily, they were right – Tracking Cloud® was born and our story had begun.

So, we do not only offer you better tools for modern business digitalization, but also understand the existing systems and their possibilities, restrictions, weaknesses, and pitfalls. When you choose Tracking Cloud®, you also get our vast industry expertise. We are more than just a software provider – we are your partner in digital business.

This blog was originally published on 07.10.2021. Edited on 12.09.2023.