ERP in the cloud: why a phased transition delivers results faster

Moving your ERP software to the cloud opens up new possibilities for your organization and the way you manage your business processes. But when it is time to go live, does your on-premises software really have to be switched “off” and your SaaS software switched “on” all at once? Moving to the cloud is often seen as an all-or-nothing decision, with everything going live at the same time. But transitioning in phases offers many advantages. In this blog, I’ll explain the benefits of a phased transition compared with moving everything to the cloud at once.

What is a phased transition?

A phased transition means moving different parts of your software and organization to the cloud according to a planned schedule. Instead of moving everything to the cloud at once, you focus on one department or process area at a time. This could, for example, include purchasing, suppliers, and sales.

Each phase has its own go-live date, allowing each process area to operate independently. Process areas that are already in the cloud continue to work seamlessly with those that will transition at a later stage.

Why moving everything to the cloud at once is becoming less practical

Organizing large IT projects while keeping the impact on your business to a minimum is becoming increasingly difficult. This is partly due to staff shortages, the pressure to keep innovating, and the need to keep customers satisfied.

A transition that involves the entire organization at the same time requires extensive preparation, capacity, and coordination. This increases the risks involved. For many companies, a phased transition to the cloud is therefore a better fit.

More control over change

A phased transition gives you more control over the change process. Instead of one major go-live involving the entire organization, the transition is divided into several phases. This makes it easier to manage the impact on employees and teams.

A phased approach also often aligns better with the capacity available within the organization. Employees are involved in the phases relevant to them, while their involvement in other phases is kept to a minimum. This allows day-to-day operations to continue as much as possible.

It also creates opportunities to apply lessons from earlier phases directly to subsequent phases and process areas, such as experience with setting up a workflow or defining the steps in a wizard. What works well can be repeated. What could work better can be adjusted.

Start using new functionality sooner

When moving everything to the cloud at once, you often only start seeing the benefits once the entire system goes live. With a phased approach, you can start using new functionality immediately within each process area, such as custom fields, tiles in your cockpit, and the ability to customize screens yourself.

Take the purchasing process, for example. Once it has been moved to the cloud, users and application administrators can immediately start working with the new functionality. The experience they gain can then also be applied to other process areas.

Learn and improve during the transition

Perhaps the biggest advantage of a phased transition is that improvement becomes part of the process itself. In practice, Isah consultants regularly see companies gain new insights into their processes and ways of working during the first phases. This creates opportunities to adjust decisions and further optimize processes when moving on to other departments.

You do not need to design everything perfectly in advance. Along the way, your organization learns what works for you and where different choices might be more effective. As a result, the final solution often aligns better with day-to-day operations than it would after moving everything to the cloud at once.

So, what are the benefits of a phased transition?

A phased approach helps organizations move to the cloud one process area at a time in a controlled way, while keeping the impact on day-to-day operations as manageable as possible and allowing them to experience the benefits of cloud software sooner.
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