Gartner, Inc. says the idea that an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system could be a catalyst for finance transformation may seem counterintuitive to many finance leaders who often find such platforms act as a barrier to transformation.
According to Nisha Bhandare, vice president analyst at Gartner, there are ways to turn that situation around and use an ERP platform to boost finance transformation.
Approximately eight in 10 finance functions currently plan upgrades to their ERP platform, Gartner says, with cloud ERP currently the most valued technology for finance functions, outperforming artificial intelligence, Generative AI and machine learning.
ERP deployments face three common challenges: Inflated promises, claiming it to be all things to all functions, that are not met and lead to frustration; inherent inflexibility that doesn’t cope well with disruption and rapidly changing business demands; and opaque ownership of the platform across finance and IT.
Moving to cloud ERP provides an opportunity to reset the ERP value story and mitigate the difficulties leading from inflated expectations, and to organize for continuous evolution and value.
Finance leaders should start with the business outcomes they want from an ERP deployment, identify the capabilities that the finance function will need to realise those outcomes, and then agree what capabilities the ERP will deliver and source accordingly.
Finance leaders should encourage agile deployments in the ERP to be able to cope with business disruption or changing strategies.
