The Chancellor’s Budget is looming at the end of November and will be on many business leaders’ minds – but balanced against investment headwinds is another issue preoccupying numerous private enterprise leaders and that’s end-of-life ERP systems.
It’s something I’ve been talking to many clients about over recent months. There is a general trend amongst the big ERP players of turning off investment in their old systems which many users run on-premise, in favour of a new generation of much more powerful, sophisticated and increasingly AI-enabled platforms that allow users to do so much more.
This means that a whole swathe of mid-market businesses are facing into an issue that is becoming ever more real. They may have been on their present ERP for a decade or more. It has become as familiar as the office furniture and the vending machines. But it is ageing and limited in its functionality – arguably even holding the company back because its functionality is not keeping pace with the growth and increasing complexity of the business. Nor is it in sync with the digitisation of the environment around us and in particular the emergence of AI.
The reality is that businesses that don’t move with the times will suffer in increasing isolation and find it ever harder to compete with their peers. As old systems become unsupported, they will also face heightened cybersecurity risks – something that no business can afford to do.
