Cloud ERP: Features, Advantages, Disadvantages, and Case Studies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems implemented on cloud platforms. It begins with an introduction to ERP, defining it as a business process management software that integrates various business functions, and cloud computing, which offers data transfer via the internet. The report details the features, advantages, and disadvantages of both ERP systems and cloud computing. Key features of ERP software include streamlining processes, managing customer relationship management (CRM), customization capabilities, and reduced time consumption. Advantages encompass competitive advantages, increased efficiency, collaboration, flexibility, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and higher productivity, while disadvantages include tough data migration, higher indirect costs, and security concerns. Cloud computing features include resource pooling, elasticity, on-demand services, and service quality. Its benefits involve easier implementation, accessibility, and flexibility, with data recovery capabilities, while the drawbacks include lack of redundancy, control, and bandwidth issues. The report then explores cloud-based ERP systems, highlighting features like easy usability, flexibility, scalability, and simple customization. The report concludes with an analysis of relevant case studies to illustrate the practical applications and benefits of cloud ERP systems.

Running head: ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
Enterprise Resource Planning on Cloud
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Research Objectives...................................................................................................................3
Research Questions....................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................4
Features, Advantages and Disadvantages of Enterprise Resource Planning.........................4
Features, Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing............................................6
Enterprise Resource Planning Systems on Cloud..................................................................8
Relevant Case Studies..........................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
ERP or enterprise resource planning is simply defined as the major procedure or an
integrated control or management of any specific kind of business process, which are
eventually mediated either with the help of software or technology (Asl et al. 2012). This
ERP or enterprise resource planning can also be termed as the particular section of the
software for business management or the significant collection of several integrated
applications that any specific organization solely uses to properly store, manage, collect,
retrieve or interpret any type of information or data from the various business operations and
activities (Zeng and Skibniewski 2013). The most popular and significant companies or
organizations subsequently use the ERP or enterprise resource planning system within the
businesses in present days. Due to the proper integration of business processes, the flow of
information is extremely smooth and hence this system is very popular for the users. Cloud
computing on the other hand is quite different from ERP (Shaul and Tauber 2013). The
technology of cloud computing is utilized by the users for the purpose of transferring any
type of data or information through the connection of Internet without any type of
complexities. This particular technology significantly depends on the sharing of resources to
successfully achieving the economy scale. The most significant advantage of the cloud
computing technology is that there is extremely less spending on the resources of computing
(Monk and Wagner 2012). Moreover, the infrastructure cost or the maintenance cost are
extremely lesser in this technology.
The following research report outlines a brief discussion on the perfect combination
of the cloud computing and ERP or enterprise resource planning system. Several choices or
options are present, which should be checked within the ERP or enterprise resource planning
software. These several options are on the premise that is referred to the specific traditional

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approach. In this particular approach, any organization purchases each and every license for
the ERP or enterprise resource planning system and thus again installing within the business.
The typical system of ERP or enterprise resource planning is solely responsible to properly
provide a perfectly and periodically upgraded or integrated view of the main activities or
procedures of the organization by simply using all the similar databases. These databases are
maintained or managed by the DBMS or database management system. This research report
will be focusing on various case studies as well that have successful stories of ERP systems
on cloud.
Research Objectives
There are several objectives of the research report of Enterprise Resource Planning on
Cloud are given below:
To learn about the enterprise resource planning software.
To understand about cloud computing concept with its features and advantages.
To understand the significant features of system of cloud ERP.
To learn about practical case studies on the system of cloud ERP.
Research Questions
The various research questions for this particular research report are given below:
i) What is ERP system on cloud?
ii) What are the features, advantages and demerits of cloud ERP system?
iii) What are the concepts of cloud computing and enterprise resource planning?
iv) Which are the popular organizations that have implemented cloud ERP systems in
their businesses?

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Literature Review
Features, Advantages and Disadvantages of Enterprise Resource Planning
The ERP or enterprise resource planning is an important and popular technology in
the technological field (Seethamraju 2015). This particular technology is eventually used by
each and every famous as well as successful companies or organizations to integrate their
business operations or processes. This technology of ERP comprises of several significant
features. These features are given below:
i) Streamlining of Processes: The first and the most important feature of ERP
software is that it helps in streamlining every business process (Kwak et al. 2012). Each and
every organization comprises of the various business processes and operations. All these
business processes and operations are vital for the business and hence these should be
properly executed without any type of problem. However, it has been noticed when any of
the business operation or process is executed separately, the resource consumption of time
and money are much more than the other business processes. This type of problem could be
easily executed with the help of enterprise resource planning software (Hasibuan and Dantes
2012). Thus, streamlining of process is important for any business to properly mitigate the
problems.
ii) Managing CRM: The next important and significant feature of the enterprise
resource planning software is the proper management of CRM or customer relationship
management. This specific feature of enterprise resource planning helps the organization in
managing all the clients or customers to sale of their business (Leon 2014). The CRM module
of the business is used by every organization. These organizations have incorporated the ERP
software solution in the businesses. The CRM module must ensure the fact that the customers
should be managed properly. The growth or development of the business depends on CRM.

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iii) Capability of Customization: The third feature of ERP software is customization
capability. This particular feature helps the clients to customize every business activity or
process easily and promptly (Ptak and Schragenheim 2016). Furthermore, this feature
decreases the consumption of time or expenses. The enterprise resource planning software is
not at all viable as the business process are altered or changed.
iv) Reduction of Time Consumption: Another important feature of the software of
ERP is the reduction of total time consumption (Seo 2013). As the time consumption is
extremely low, this particular software of ERP is popular for the particular organization.
There are several benefits of the enterprise resource planning software. These benefits
for any organization are given below:
i) Providing Competitive Advantages: The first advantage of enterprise resource
planning software is to provide competitive advantages or benefits (Matende and Ogao
2013). All of these competitive benefits are extremely vital for all companies to obtain
importance as well as popularity within the market.
ii) High Efficiency: The next benefit of the enterprise resource planning software is to
remove or eradicate each and every repetitive process and hence the need of the manual entry
of data is reduced to a greater level (Zeng and Skibniewski 2013). Furthermore, this
particular software is responsible for the perfect streamlining of various business operations.
iii) Collaboration: The third advantage is that it helps in simple collaboration of all
the present business processes. Perfect collaboration within the various departments is
mandatory to make the system or business consistent and working (Asl et al. 2012).

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iv) Flexibility and Scalability: Another significant advantage of the enterprise
resource planning software is that it is extremely flexible and scalable and thus could be
easily utilized.
v) Cost Effectiveness: The next important advantage of the enterprise resource
planning software is that it is absolutely cost effective and hence can be easily afforded by
every organization thin their businesses (Monk and Wagner 2012). The administrative and
the operational costs hence could be easily reduced or diminished by the proper utilization of
this software.
vi) Higher Productivity: The productivity becomes extremely high with the presence
of the software of ERP.
Although, this software comprises of various advantages, there are some of the major
demerits of this technology. They are given below:
i) Tough Migration of Data: The data migration is much more complicated and tough
and thus this software is often avoided by various businesses (Shaul and Tauber 2013).
ii) Higher Indirect Costs: Another important disadvantage of the ERP software is that
the indirect costs or expenses are much more than the direct costs and thus the smaller
organizations cannot choose this particular software for their businesses (Kwak et al. 2012).
iii) Security: Since, the implementation of this software is completely on the vendor
dependency, security is often lost and the users lose their confidentiality of data.
Features, Advantages and Disadvantages of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing comprises of various important characteristics (Zissis and Lekkas
2012). The most significant features of the technology of cloud computing is given below:

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i) Resource Pool as well as Elasticity: The technology of cloud computing helps in
resource pooling and provides elasticity to the clients (Dinh et al. 2013). It uses the feature of
multi tenancy by which all the resources could be easily allocated or removed according to
user choice.
ii) On Demand Services: The technology of cloud computing is perfectly based on
self service and on the models of service. The user is enabled to interact in the cloud to
perform any task.
iii) Service Quality: cloud computing is also responsible for improving the overall
quality of the services (Arora, Parashar and Transforming 2013). For this higher quality of
services, cloud computing is utilized by every user.
There are some of the major benefits of cloud computing technology. These benefits
are given below:
i) Easier Implementation: The most significant advantage of cloud computing is that
it helps in easier implementation (Xu 2012). This is due to the scalability of the software.
ii) Easy Accessibility: The second benefit is that cloud computing helps to access the
data from anywhere.
iii) Higher Flexibility: Another important benefit of this cloud computing is that it
provides high flexibility to the business (Jadeja and Modi 2012).
iv) Data Recovery: The data can be easily recovered efficiently.
Although, this software comprises of various advantages, there are some of the major
demerits of this technology. They are given below:

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i) No Redundancy: The lack of redundancy is the major disadvantage of cloud
computing technology (Fernando, Loke and Rahayu 2013). Thus the cloud server is not
redundant in nature.
ii) No Control: The lack of data control is the second demerit of this technology.
iii) Issues in Bandwidth: The bandwidth of cloud computing is much lesser than
normal and this is one of the major problem for the cloud providers as well as the users (Chen
and Zhao 2012).
Enterprise Resource Planning Systems on Cloud
The cloud based ERP software helps to allow all the users in accessing the
applications of software that are eventually running on all the shared computing resources via
Internet connection. Each of these resources should be controlled within the data centres,
which are subsequently dedicated to host the various applications over the various platforms
(Wang et al. 2012). This cloud based ERP software can be defined as the specific software as
a service or SaaS model that enables all the users to access the software of ERP over Internet.
The overall cost of this software is extremely less as the resources of computing could not be
controlled or maintained on premises.
The various features of the cloud based ERP software are given below:
i) Easy Usability: The most significant feature of the cloud ERP system is that this
software could be easily used by everyone and does not comprise of any complexity and is
thus claimed to have an easy usability (Hashem et al. 2013). Moreover, the application could
be selected easily and promptly.
ii) Flexibility and Scalability: The next significant feature of the cloud ERP system is
that it is extremely flexible and scalable. This feature refers to the fact that there is an ability

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in growing as well as contracting the cloud based applications according to the demands
(Garg, Versteeg and Buyya 2013). Each and every cloud provider comprise of various robust
system that are used to handle according to the cloud computing. This even helps the
organizations in not paying any type of penalties and thus saving organizational resources.
iii) Simple Customization: The third significant feature of the cloud ERP system is
that it comprises of simple customization (Lee and Zomaya 2012). The various tasks of every
user are eventually performed according to the demands.
iv) Constant Support: Another important characteristic of this software is that it is
responsible for providing constant support to all the users or clients. For a constant customer
support of 24*7, cloud based ERP software is the most popular for every user and hence
becoming one of the major software for every client.
This cloud based enterprise resource planning software has various advantages
(Rittinghouse and Ransome 2016). They are given below:
i) Avoiding Upfront Costs: One of the most significant benefits is that it helps to
avoid all the upfront expenses or costs. The various infrastructure costs of computing like
data server or hardware are explicitly avoided in the process.
ii) Reduction of IT Supports: The next important advantage of the cloud based
enterprise resource planning software is that it helps in the reduction of all IT supports
(Hashizume et al. 2013). All of these support services are eventually provided by any data
centre.
iii) Elimination of Costs: The next important advantage of the cloud based enterprise
resource planning software is that it helps to eliminate or eradicate the extra costs or
expenses.

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iv) Presence of Disaster Recovery Plan: A proper DR plan is present within the
software of cloud ERP (Seethamraju 2015). Hence, there is extremely less chance of data loss
or data theft. Moreover, data can be backed up easily.
v) Avoiding of Attacks: The fifth significant benefit of this cloud based ERP software
is that it helps to avoid all types of attacks in the server of the organization.
vi) Lacking Hardware Installation: Another significant benefit of the cloud based
ERP software is that it does not need any kind of installation of hardware (Hasibuan and
Dantes 2012).
vii) Easier Accessibility: Moreover, data can be accessed simply and promptly and
thus problems could be avoided.
Although, this software comprises of various advantages, there are some of the major
demerits of this technology (Leon 2014). They are given below:
i) Issues to Integration: The first issue is that it has problem in integration and thus
could be properly integrate all the business processes properly.
ii) Implementation of Management Processes: The management processes can be
easily implemented and this is the second demerit of cloud ERP system (Ptak and
Schragenheim 2016).
iii) Tough Decision Making: The process of decision making is much tougher with
the presence of cloud ERP system.
iv) Migration of Data: The final problem is the migration of data. It is much difficult.

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Relevant Case Studies
Various popular companies have eventually implemented the cloud ERP software to
execute the business operations or processes (Seo 2013). Three significant case studies of
cloud ERP software are given below:
i) Baldinger Bakery: It is one of the most popular bakeries that is doing business for
128 years. For the exponential growth or expansion, this bakery has decided to open more
branches (Matende and Ogao 2013). This bakery has implemented cloud ERP software and
within only three months, this organization has increased 30 percent sales and delivery
accuracy of 99 percent.
ii) Coffice: The second case study is of Coffice that manufactures coffee machines.
This organization is going from various issues regarding inventory processes and accounting
processes (Zeng and Skibniewski 2013). After the successful implementation of cloud ERP
software, the problems are being mitigated easily.
iii) Living Proof: The third case study is of a hair care products organization, Living
Proof. After the successful implementation of cloud ERP software, the overall revenue of this
particular organization has eventually incremented and also there is an increment in portfolio
of the products (Shaul and Tauber 2013). At a range of 330 percent of total revenue of the
organization has incremented and hence these have become extremely successful within their
business. The ability of brand has improved.
The above mentioned three case studies properly demonstrate the fact that cloud ERP
software is the most significant requirement in any business to gain competitive advantages.

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Conclusion
Therefore, from the above research report, conclusion can be drawn that ERP or
enterprise resource planning system is the wide set .of activities that eventually help any
organization or company to manage or control their business. The major aim or objective of
the enterprise resource planning system is the significant integration of all the back office
operations or processes of business as well as the proper facilitation of any flow of
information in an organization to make all the decisions of business properly driven by data.
Each and every suite of this enterprise resource planning software is constructed to collect
and organize the data from any management level of organization. This is done to connect
each of the business operation in all the respective departments. There is a structured
approach within the software of enterprise resource planning for helping the company to
automate and standardize each and every business process, hence improvising the efficiencies
of operations. There is an integrated approach to manage all the business processes for the
purpose of ensuring the significant fact that money or time could be easily saved. The
technology of cloud computing can be defined as the process, which is used to properly
deliver the hosted services over the connection of Internet. Cloud computing helps in
enabling the client companies; to consume all the computing resources; such as applications,
storage and virtual machines. The various computing infrastructures could also be built as
well as maintained with the help of cloud computing. Cloud computing comprises of four
deployment models for their clients. These deployment models are public cloud, private
cloud, community cloud and finally hybrid cloud. This particular technology even comprises
of three architecture models for their clients. These three architecture models are IaaS or
infrastructure as a service, PaaS or platform as a service, SaaS or software as a service. ERP
system on cloud or simply cloud ERP system can be defined as the proper combination of the
technologies of cloud computing and enterprise resource planning. This particular software is

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hosted on a platform of the technology of cloud computing and also on the premise in the
data centre of the organization. Each and every application of ERP or enterprise resource
planning majorly involves every module for the finance department or the human capital
management. This type of cloud ERP system is completely related to disaster, backup as well
as software availability. The above research report has clearly demonstrated every vital
concept or feature of cloud ERP software, enterprise resource planning system as well as
cloud computing technology.

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