Hosting your ERP solution: 10 questions to consider

Much advice about ERP investment decisions (Lumenia’s included) will tell you that ERP is a business transformation project, not an IT project. Also that the business case should focus on the business benefits that will be realised. These statements are both valid and are both fundamentals of a successful ERP project.

However, ERP is also an IT project. A broad business benefits analysis should look at the IT changes it may bring. These range from organisational to infrastructural.

A key question that is sometimes given limited consideration until late in the ERP selection process, or even between selection and project initiation, is the matter of how to host the solution.

Let us assume that a pure subscription model (SaaS - Software as a Service) is not suitable for your implementation for one reason or another, or, that some of the strong contenders in your selection process do not offer it. Let us also assume that you have decided to outsource the technical hosting and management of your ERP platform. You have decided that you want to remove the headache of hardware and platform upgrades, and want to reduce your IT payroll in the technical areas like database and server administration. You have always had niggling concerns that the server room isn’t quite up to scratch and that the recovery time would be excessively disruptive to the business, despite your IT manager’s diligence in preparing detailed recovery SOPs.

Implementing a new ERP can provide an opportunity to address some of these concerns and a dedicated hosting partner can provide a level of service and protection for your ERP that you could never hope to mirror internally. Your ERP vendor will provide you with the basic specifications and systems architecture that will determine how many servers you need, how much processing power you need, what storage is likely to be required and the various components which will enable the hosting partner to specify, and cost, their solution and service.

However, beyond these basic specifications there are a number of things to consider that will impact the service provided and its flexibility to enable you to react to changes in your business.

Deciding on what makes most sense for you can be a difficult task.

In Lumenia’s latest White Paper 'Hosting your ERP solution: 10 questions to consider'  we describe ten key questions to consider before talking to your hosting partner. Download it now and see how you can simplify the selection of a service that best fits your service and risk management needs. 

This blog and white paper was written by Ian O’Toole, Managing Partner at Lumenia. If you would like further information on ERP or ERP Hosting please send an e-mail to Ian O’Toole.